Between
by MoonbeamMadness
Summary: When Fairy Tail disbanded everyone was left to find their own paths in the world. Some of these roads the ex-guild members are walking alone, but for Gajeel, Levy and Pantherlily, well, they're going to be grateful for some old Fairy Tail assistance when it comes to their new jobs at the council. A collection of single and multi-chapter shorts in the year between. ON HIATUS
1. Chapter 1

The shrubbery whipped at her face, painfully marring it's surface with bloody oozing lines as she sped through the dense woods. Above her the moon shone bright enough to illuminate the area well but she didn't have the time to examine the path for the safest route to camp; instead choosing to cast herself through the thicket with a very un-Levy abandon. Behind her she could hear the laughter echoing between the trees, moving with an otherworldly speed, not bothered by the obstacles that tripped and beat at her almost every other foot; the chilling sound gradually getting closer and closer. She may have been moving like the wind but the darkness seemed to be everywhere at once. The knowledge made her heart hammer against her ribs so hard she was sure it was on the verge of outright failing her. Her lungs burned. The soles of her feet ached. Her muscles started to weaken, slowing her down. There would be a swift resolution to this game of cat and mouse she was currently playing and she knew it. She couldn't keep going like this.

In the distance she saw the faint glow of a camp fire but despite this she knew that the sanctuary of the camp was still too far. She was already painfully aware that she could be overtaken at any point on this mad dash. The purpose of chasing her was to wear her down. Tire her out. Let her get just to the borders of safety and then snatch her into the shadows. Get her in such an exhausted state that she wouldn't be able to mount much of a defence. Out of the corners of her vision she spotted a clearing. Just an empty field, about a hundred yards wide filled with long grass. With a renewed purpose she steeled herself for what was undoubtedly going to be a short lived battle and darted abruptly to the right. The laughter at her rear stopped and the wind whispered something unintelligible. From behind her a shadow moved so swiftly in the same direction that even if you had been looking directly at it, it more than likely would have slipped by unnoticed. The shadow sped passed her, lingering at the center of the clearing, directly in her path.

When the script mage heard the faint laughter ahead of her she came to an abrupt halt and before the shadow could react the words 'SHIELD' and 'SUN' appeared above them. Heat and light exploded from the center of the clearing and a roar of pain resonated as a figure was literally dragged kicking and screaming from the shadow world. His iron body caught in the magnetic field of the makeshift sun while the shadow world he'd been moving in was viciously burned away in the searing light. A few feet off the ground and the iron scales covering his body withdrew and he fell to the earth, couching like a cat, no longer caught in the worst of it's pull. A moment he gave to wonderment and agony, looking at her magic it in all it's glory; watched flares explode from the surface of the letters only to collide with an invisible barrier. Thousands of them per second and all so close that he reckoned he could brush it's surface with his fingertips. His eyes burned but he found it difficult to look away. To move away from it's heat. It was beautiful, sitting above them, the extent of it's destructive power contained inside a bubble he couldn't even fathom the strength of. How strong would a barrier be to trap a sun? Even a tiny, conjured one. The moment of distraction cost him and the only warning he received of an attack was the blur of an armoured fist a second before it materialized through the blinding light and struck him in the face, hard enough to make even the dragon slayer momentarily see stars as his feet left the ground and he collided with the earth several feet away.

He managed to clamber back to his feet a few moments later only to just about dodge another heavy swing. The sight of her then made the sun look shabby in comparison. Breath left his lungs at the image as her whole body shined in the light, as though she were made of steel. The colour of her hair and her skin and clothes gleamed a silvery white. Even her normally brown irises shone with the same metallic sheen, making her hard expression appear downright menacing. Emblazoned across her chest was the word 'TITANIUM'. 'STRENGTH' was etched into her stomach a few inches lower. He winced openly. He'd never seen her employ her magic like this before, and in a direct fight? Applying stuff like this to yourself was always a risk and an attack like this would cost her every ounce of magic she had and they both knew it. Already the drain on the script mage's magic was taking it's toll as the sun above began to dull and shrink. Solid script magic could create a lot of things but the like of shields and suns in this case required a constant draw of energy to maintain.

Through the pain Gajeel let a half grin slip. She'd done all of this on the spot while being chased through the woods by a dragon slayer. Job at the council? She should be leading it. He took a stance to deflect another blow as the woman pulled back her fist but the burden was already beginning to show and she was moving even slower than she would normally. That's when he spotted it and balked. The skin on her bare shoulders had begun to crack and tear at the joints. Oil like blood oozing from the seams. The script word wasn't just armour, it was sinking deeper than that. Impromptu, on the fly, unpractised script magic often had it's own risks and consequences but this was something else. She was wincing in pain. She was becoming the word; it was changing her. Her chest heaving with the need to taken in oxygen. Very few mages would ever experience what it felt like to have their insides turn to metal. It was often very, very far from pleasant.

Her third assault was much too slow, giving Gajeel time to recover his senses. As physically strong as the magic had made her she was just not fast enough to dodge his counter attack, taking the full force of his rough, somewhat desperate tackle square in the midsection. With a guttural 'OOOMPF' that very nearly sent bile screeching up her throat, the sun above winked out of existence and she landed painfully on her back, Gajeel sitting over her hips pining her arms at shoulder height. He didn't know how deep the magic was spreading but she was almost out of energy and it didn't look like it was stopping.

"You need to undo it. You need to undo it, now," He was only vaguely aware that he was panicking. The woman's expression focused and much to his relief her skin started returning to it's normal fleshy texture, albeit far paler than it had been and coated in a layer of sweat and dirt.

His eyes locked in worry at her now freely bleeding shoulders.

"Yeh really went all out, Shorty," He said before letting out the breath he'd been holding and releasing one of her wrists to prod the wounds, careful not to open them any wider. To his relief they were shallow. They'd heal quickly. She closed her eyes and took a few shaky deep breaths. She tried to speak but her throat was on fire. Her limbs felt like they'd been swapped with lead. She'd very almost made it back to camp. Almost even beat him in a direct confrontation but she lacked stamina and that last spell had backfired spectacularly. The word for strength had meant to reinforce the armour, instead it had changed the very nature of the script word itself. In an a very interesting way mind you, and however painful it opened up avenues for future testing.

Gajeel moved to sit at her side and put an arm under her shoulders lifting her into a sitting position.

"I thought the game was escape and evade back to camp? Heh. Caught me off-guard with that, Shrimp," He flashed her a side grin.

"I figured... there was no point...in running this time," She rasped between breaths, smiling. "You always catch me."

He let a thumb caress the skin on her cheek, beneath the long cut that had appeared there during the chase. The smear of blood that followed the digit made his insides tighten. He withdrew his hand sharply but a much smaller one latched onto his wrist.

"It was my idea to do this," She wheezed. "Don't go getting all guilty on me now, Gajeel. You're going to make me bigger, remember?" She smiled tiredly at him. Blood stained lips, bruised and cut face, crimson soaked arms. The sight of her and his heart literally skipped a beat. He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath between clenched teeth. The cold normally never bothered him but tonight his skin goosebumped and his limbs trembled in response to the mild chill in the wind. Levy looked at him in abject fascination. Gajeel Redfox was a swirl of contradictions and internal struggles.

They sat there in silence for several drawn out seconds before a warm hand on his cheek snapped him back to himself. Unwittingly, he leaned into it's heat. A simple act of comfort that stilled his shaking, the chaste kiss that followed on his opposite cheek breathed life back into his body.

When he opened his eyes Levy had already made her way to her feet and was offering him an outstretched hand. A smile was still plastered across her face. He took her small digits in his and stood. Adrenaline fading fast Gajeel realised just how much his insides hurt. Walking back to the fire was going to be painfully unpleasant. Gingerly they made their way out of the clearing and in the direction of their temporary camp where Lily would undoubtedly be waiting with the food and wondering where they'd gone off to at this hour of night. Gajeel knew he'd be in for another beating when Lily caught the sorry state of both of them. For all her injuries that night Gajeel was astounded that they were just superficial. While he might have won the fight, he very almost didn't. The dragon slayer was fairly sure that sucker punch of hers had fractured his jaw on one side and the magnetic forces had done a fair bit of damage to his internal organs. Might explain why his stomach still felt like it was sitting behind his ribcage. That and it would seem her magic was growing. Solid script magic held the ability to make something out of nothing but what she'd done had gone off in a new direction entirely. Transformative magic. Perhaps not even that far from actual enchanting. Using words to change one thing into another. He laughed then, and laughed again when the movement caused sudden jolts of pain through his core.

Levy gave him a curious side glare. Unsure about what it was he found so amusing. Lily was undoubtedly going to annihilate them. There was nothing amusing about the conversation with fangs waiting for them back at camp. Gajeel stumbled then and the smaller mage caught him by the shoulder and slung his arm across her own.

"Yep, I do believe that exceed is going to kill us," She whispered amid Gajeel's increasingly boisterous laughter.


	2. Chapter 2

There were a number of odd looks when he entered the bar. He wasn't sure what the other patrons were expecting from him when he caught the three guys crowding her; beers in hand while they tried to pry her eyes from the late translations she was doing before the train home in the morning, but apathy probably wasn't it. For the most part she ignored them and a quick sideways warning to him and Gajeel made the choice to do the same. It would be best if he didn't put himself on Levy's bad side as well.

Within ten minutes of pestering and Levy's occasional disinterested pleasantry thrown in for good measure, even Gajeel could see that she was getting irritated. The three drunk assholes surrounding her had clearly either not seen the Fairy Tail brand on her back and the council mark on the jacket draped across the back of her chair, or the alcohol, and the fact that Levy wasn't the most physically intimidating mage, had given them a surge of misplaced courage. When Gajeel had walked in their suddenly cautious, carefully stolen glances his direction spoke volumes about the situation developing. If they knew who he was, by extension they must have known who she was. Outside of the guild the relationship between them was nothing more than rumour and speculation but it wasn't that hard to see there was something there. Clearly these guys were looking for some kind of trouble.

He absently realised that, stereotypically, this would be where he would be expected to defend Levy's honour or get jealous or something equally as boring. Did it irritate him? Absolutely. Did it make him jealous? No. _Especially_ when it came to trivial stuff like this. Since taking up her current council position Levy started taking exception to him fighting her battles. He'd agreed; she wasn't a porcelain doll to be put up and admired. Levy was more than that, and even more than _that,_ to him. For crying out loud they'd fought demons and demi gods together, anything less than the end of the world was just an exercise in being ridiculous. He could only smirk looking at the guys' almost predatory attempts to goad her into their conversations before turning back to his drink.

He did make the difficult attempt to appear completely nonchalant but the oh-so-casual glances that made it their way caught the hardening lines on her face and the change in her demeanor. She'd wanted a little bit of alone time free of distraction to complete some much overdue work. That was why he was at the bar and not the table to begin with. Any guy with eyes who was interested in a girl would know well before this that the girl in question wasn't interested in company. Then again, it wasn't really her company they were after. It was control. Intimidation. Domination. While they surrounded this woman, taking up her time and her attentions, they were the ones in control. The fact that she happened to be a wizard with some power of her own probably made it all the more exciting. Unfortunately for them, Levy wasn't playing. Pointedly ignoring them though he could see her patience wearing thin.

If they were looking for someone to play with they'd have to look elsewhere.

The man on the far side of Levy caught the latest glance Gajeel sent her way and locked eyes with him. A smile growing on the intrusive wizard's face.

"Hey! Rusty the Dragon Slayer! Whatcha lookin' at?" He jeered.

Gajeel laughed and went back to his beer. There were folks present that probably would have said he was last person in the bar they should annoy, but he knew that they were already annoying the worst person they could. A pissed off Levy would deal with them in ways they _wouldn't_ be able to handle. A beating just wasn't her style. The sound of Gajeel's laughter was far more unnerving than any threat he could have come back with. Patrons in the bar had started to leave. The magic council were a little preoccupied these days and skirmishes weren't exactly uncommon at the minute, despite the laws.

"Well? You gonna just sit there and glare while we make moves on your bed-warmer?" The man slurred.

Gajeel set down his beer and turned around in his bar stool to face them directly. The disrespect stung him a little and he felt himself suppress the urge to introduce the stone floor to their faces.

"What makes you think I'd care _?_ " He let the deadpan question silence the group.

"Bullshit!" The loudest of the group blurted out. "I happen to know for a fact she's your woman."

Gajeel slouched forward, head lowered dangerously.

"We're dating..."He ground out. "She ain't some _thing_ I own," He grit out, Levy's attention now squarely focused on him. He read her quiet, thoughtful and righteously frustrated face and gave her a warmer smile. She winked cheekily at him quickly in return and his stomach did a little flip. "We might be going out but that doesn't mean I gotta follow her around or stamp my name on her ass or something. If she wanted someone else, she wouldn't be with me. End of," He absently remarked. "What do I care that some bunch of drunk fools are gonna get their asses kicked?"

She gave him a smile and it saturated him to his core in a warmth not unlike sunshine.

"Hah! Ass kicked by who? Her?" He slapped his friend in the chest lightly. "What a joke," He laughed. "Rumour was that the big bad 'Black Steel' Gajeel was a demon," He goaded. "But all I see is a coward not willing to stand up for his own girlfriend."

Gajeel quirked a studded eyebrow at the statement shooting Levy a look that she instantly read as 'is this guy for real?' He could hear her audibly sigh before slamming her tome closed. She'd officially given up on work. The dragon slayer felt like punching the air.

"I'd squash you like an insect. But I ain't gonna do a thing," Gajeel stood up and offered his outstretched hand to Levy who rose from the table.

"Excuse me, _gentlemen,_ " Came the syrupy, sarcastic response from the previously silent script mage.

"Wait….what?" One of the other men garbled.

There were confused expressions all around the table as they tried to stand after her. Tried to move. _Anything._ Within moments they couldn't even speak. All three of them were frozen in place. Only their eyeballs left to move back and forth in comically panicked motions as runes started to glow along the surface of the table spreading slowly up their arms and necks.

Gajeel leaned in really close to the main instigator. At this point a bead of sweat had appeared on the man's brow involuntarily and started to slide down. The Dragon slayer made a point of showing the very inhumanly long canines in his smile as he inhaled and exhaled through his nose. Face now so close to the petrified fool's that his hot breath knocked the droplet of sweat from its perch on the drunk man's eyebrow.

"See? Didn't _have_ to do anything. You should be flattered. She could have just dumped a boulder on your heads. She's usually not this nice when she's annoyed," He sneered. "And yeah, my bed is _plenty_ warm," He grinned widely.

Hand in hand Levy led them outside.

Bellowing laughter moved further and further from the bar as the three men suddenly became very aware of their overly full bladders.


	3. Chapter 3

Notes

I'd like to thank my reviewers, **deblovesdragon** and **lilpheonixfeather**. Your reviews really do mean a lot. :D

Just a quick warning, folks. This chapter is long and filled with unpleasantness.

* * *

" _Yeah, well, taking lives changes a person, Shrimp," He rested his hand on her shoulder. The limb a heavier than usual burden. "Ain't important whether it's justified or not. You're still not the same," Gajeel's voice wavered slightly. "Yeh lose a part of yourself every time. Eventually it becomes second nature to you. You attack to kill. And the worst thing about it is how little you notice. And when you finally do?" His red eyes pierced her. "Then you don't care."_

She hadn't known why the council had wanted her and Gajeel to bring in this mage. She'd protested, vigorously when they'd sent the request. She didn't understand it; why they'd specifically asked for them when there were dozens of other candidates that would have been closer and more than happy to oblige. It had taken them over a week to even get here but now that she was here she understood why. Understood because out of all the mages working for the council they'd had the most hands on experience with curse magic; they'd seen their share of monsters. It might have been nice to have had some warning first but this new council kept things close to their chests. In this case 'capture dark mage' fell short. It fell so, unbelievably short.

She ducked behind a small crumbling rock wall as the now familiar splash and sizzle sound rang out, punctuated by the screams of the men unlucky enough to have been caught in the cross-hairs of the wizard who'd, by her count, taken down over a dozen men with his magic; their bodies dissolved away by streams of acid that cut through the barriers she'd cast up around them and almost instantly reduced a line of council soldiers into puddles of flesh, screaming for mercy. Their deaths were on her hands and it made her more than desperate to protect the rest. As sunlight started spilling through the corroded holes in the stone wall the mage stood and tried not to gag. The smells made her retch and unwittingly her eyes locked with the eyes of Jonah, one of the men who'd accompanied them, his screaming face burned it's way into her memory as slime and entrails poured out of the hole now steaming in his abdomen. She had no doubt that she would see him echoing in her mind till the day she died. Open mouthed and screaming.

When she did pull her eyes from the now corpse she found Gajeel on his hands and knees to the far right of the group. An arm over his face covering his mouth and nose. Even from this distance she could see the raw red ringing his eyes. He'd been too close to the initial attack and must have inhaled some of the vapor. Iron lungs could only do so much and she watched in worry as his skin started shifting from iron back to much less durable skin and muscle.

She took a solid stance, a deep breath and the word 'NEUTRALIZE' appeared between the mage and her and Gajeel's remaining men. The stream of acid passed right through the word as though it were nothing more than cloud but when hit them it had as much effect as water. A substantial number of relieved faces mirrored her own. Still in a little shock that it worked Levy's eyes fell on the dark wizard. His black, soulless eyes were wild...but he was now smiling. She froze. Eyes locking on his. Her entire body was paralyzed. She couldn't even breathe. She swallowed and felt moisture gather at her eyes. Tears that had nothing to do with the toxic air assaulting them fell down her stained cheeks. _What is this?_ She was screaming internally now. Her body felt release suddenly and she fell to her knees. The dark mage had been so fixated on her that he missed the iron pole that shot out from the crowd and struck him across the temple with a sickening crunch. His body fell limply to the ground in a tangle of limbs, smile still present on his deranged face. He didn't move and for that she was grateful. Willing her feet to work she approached him cautiously before she realised just how hard that blow had been. The council had wanted him taken alive.

"The council wanted...we didn't have to..." She began half-heartedly, words lost amid the horror surrounding them but she was quickly interrupted.

"Well I don't give a _damn_ what the council wanted this guy for." The dragon slayer rubbed a hand across his burned eyes trying to get a better view of the carnage. "There's fourteen men who won't be going home today," He growled at her now vacant expression before grabbing her by the arm and pulling her off to the side out of direct earshot of the remaining men. "Levy," He spoke softly, watching her pause at the use of her actual name. "There was no taking that guy back alive. You saw him. We don't have any cuffs that work on curses," He sighed. "Had to take him out." She couldn't answer him. Still trying to get to grips with everything, Team Shadowgear had never taken jobs this violent. They'd never been forced to kill. There was a tight feeling in her chest that refused to go away. As though she'd swallowed a lump. He mistook her silence as disapproval. "Don't be naive, Levy."

The words bit her. In the deepest recesses of her mind she knew he was right. He did the sensible thing, more than likely saving all their lives in the process but Levy was angry. Angry that her barriers had failed to save so many men, angry that even after defeating Mard Greer and Tartarus two months ago there were still mages experimenting with curse magic; still people trying to turn themselves into monsters. Most of all though, she was angry that Gajeel was absolutely right and she was wrong on this.

"Yeah, well maybe some of us don't want to be murderers," She clutched her hand to her mouth, horror written on her face at the words that came out and the piercing anguish that blanketed his. She reached out to grab his arm but he pulled it back. His expression icy. "I didn't mean that. I'm so sorry...I didn't..."

Gajeel had already turned away from her.

* * *

The following three days on the road back to Lily and the main force were steeped in uncomfortable silence. Gajeel hadn't said a word to her. He'd even had one of the men hand her the incident report instead of giving it to her himself. Levy had cried herself to sleep every night since before being greeted with the expected nightmares. Except in these dreams, she was the dark mage. Her hands stained with blood as she found herself looking down into Gajeel's dead hate-filled eyes. When she woke she'd be sitting up, face contorted in a silent scream. The worse part about the nightmare was how in reality she hadn't done all that better. She loved Gajeel. More than anything. More than living. That was if she would ever get around to telling him the extent of those feelings. She would have died for him but she had hurt him in a way she was positive few ever had because her words mattered to him. Her opinion was important. Anyone else had said that to him and he would have laughed in their face, but she shook him to the bones; her words held power. As a script mage the power of words should have been clear to her but she'd really, really messed up. The woman's gaze wandered to the scrunched up report peaking out of the corner of her side satchel. Gajeel had never even bothered writing reports before. She put her face in her hands and scrubbed hard.

"I need to fix this, I have to fix this," She murmured to no one in particular.

They walked from dawn to dusk on the fourth day until the main camp was barely a half a nights walk from their current position. Levy gave the remaining mages a choice to either make camp or continue on and take the wagon with what corpses they had to Lily's forces. Understandably the troops chose to keep marching. No one had been sleeping the last few nights and they were all eager to be debriefed and get home to their families. Gajeel hadn't said anything about her proclamation. When he'd turned to go with the wagon she'd stopped him.

"We're going to make camp here tonight. There's a few things we've to discuss and a little more paperwork to fill out. We should catch up about noon tomorrow," She announced in her most authoritative voice. The men were aware they were a dating couple, although they kept things on a strictly professional level on most big jobs, so they didn't spare a thought to the decision.

Gajeel however, openly glared at her. In combat, he gave the orders, but Levy's tactical position gave her the ability to make these stupid kinds of decisions. His mouth pulled into a scowl. He waited till the men were out of sight before rounding on her.

"So what, yer pullin' rank now?" He asked, distaste evident on his features. When the woman didn't immediately respond he turned away to leave. In a moment she'd crossed the distance between them and had a hold of his wrist.

"You were right Gajeel," Her face was pained. "And I knew you were right." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "I don't know what happened. I was terrified and I was angry and when he looked at me and smiled like I was an accomplice in all this...and..." Tears slipped out unbidden and she wiped them away with a stained sleeve. "I remember what you told me once about killing. I didn't mean what I said. I wasn't angry at you," His features softened and she was interrupted by a pair of arms crushing her to him. His breath on her head made her knees almost like jelly but he held her up.

"I'm sorry," He mumbled before pulling back from her. "And I didn't hit him intending to kill him, Shorty," He ran a hand over her head messing up her hair a little. "It wasn't intentional. To be honest, it wasn't even that hard, whatever it looked like he was into was killing him. Looked like he'd have been dead in a week if we hadn't have found him first. I don't want things to go back to how they were before," _I don't want to be the man capable of hurting you like I did_ were the unspoken words. His voice was hard. He gave her a half smile. "The whole world can think I'm a monster but I couldn't deal with it if you did," He admitted.

"I don't," She whispered.

They stayed in that embrace for what seemed like an eternity before Gajeel spoke again.

"I don't know about you but I ain't slept in an actual bed in a week and really don't feel like pitching camp out here till morning," He grinned softly at her. "How about we catch up to the men?"

Levy slung her bag over her shoulder but Gajeel plucked it out of her hands. A supply bag over each shoulder now as he picked up the pace in the direction of the wagon. The blue haired mage felt the most enormous weight lifted from her chest as she took off at a light jog to catch up to him.

The pair had been walking for about a half an hour when Levy stopped in her tracks.

"Gajeel, the wagon wasn't moving that fast, we should have caught up with them by now," A two horse wagon and five men wouldn't have been easy to miss. "Can you smell anything?"

He sniffed the air and promptly regretted it.

"Nothing. Nose is all messed up from the fumes." He snorted.

She held her hand in front of her, palm up and whispered "Light," just loud enough for Gajeel to hear, tracing her fingers quickly through the air. A small lacrima looking orb appeared, glowing with a soft white radiance that illuminated the the surrounding area.

Looking down at their feet Gajeel noticed it first.

"No tracks. Don't know how but we passed them." His eyes narrowed cursing his lack of smell.

The pair doubled back and finally found the tracks they were looking for, maybe about a mile from where they'd separated. In the faint light they noticed the odd scattering of items in the road. A dagger here, a crossbow bolt there. The set of locks from the wagon doors; the mechanism melted into an unrecognizable shape. But no wagon and no bodies. That meant there was some hope they'd still be alive. Levy kept her fingers at the ready for a neutralizing spell just in case. The tracks veered left suddenly, disappearing off the main road and into the woods. Levy and Gajeel followed at a crawl, hyper vigilant of the area around them. They made it about fifty yards in that direction before Levy choked back a scream, staggering backwards. Gajeel wrapped an arm around her waist and spun her away from the sight.

" _NO!_ " She cried out.

The iron dragon slayer felt his stomach heave as she shook against him. He was glad that his enhanced smell had been taken out of commission because he was sure that at this point he would be vomiting.

From the pile of steaming gelatinous flesh Gajeel could only assume they were already dead when they'd been placed with the horses and hit with the acid. Atop the mound some of the skulls were still recognizable; patches of skin dripping around open mouths, frozen in now decrepit expressions of terror.

"You okay, Shrimp?" He asked her quietly, unable to keep the quiver from his voice completely, already his skin had hardened to iron scales. He felt her slow nod, looking around them, examining the area for any signs of a trap. The wagon was no where to be seen. He became vaguely aware of a fog billowing around their feet.

"Actually...I feel a little..." Levy sputtered before she threw up. Her body becoming limp in Gajeels grip. He gave her a brisk shake.

"Shorty! Levy!"

There was no response. He was beginning to question why it was that she'd fainted when his own stomach started heaving. The world coming in waves of rippling darkness and moving trees before he blacked out completely.

When Levy woke next it was to the biting cold of chains around her wrists and ankles and the taste of bile in her mouth. The first thing that struck her after that was the smell, the fumes making her eyes burn and water. As she grew more accustomed to the darkness came the realisation that she was currently in a cavern; cold jagged stone scrapping her back and the soles of her now bare feet. She could hear the steady drip of water in the background and the sound of laboured breathing.

"Gajeel!" She all but screeched. " _Gajeel?!_ "

"Lev...?" The voice seemed to come from above but no matter how hard she tried to see she couldn't make him out.

There was a bright flash and unseen torches in the blackness sprung to life with a brilliant flare. She squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden light and when she opened them an involuntary scream fled her mouth. Gajeel hung, suspended from the ceiling about fifteen feet in the air by his bloody hands. The steady drip she'd been listening to wasn't water, but his blood, falling to collect in a glistening crimson pool under his feet. One of his eyes had swollen shut; deep looking cuts raking his arms and torso, a deep bleeding wound in his side. The cuffs around his wrists were the ones they'd brought themselves with the wagon to seal the mage's magic so they could take him into custody. All this before they'd discovered that they'd be completely useless. She pulled frantically at her own limbs tears falling down her face as she recognized the same adorning her hands and feet. Looking around the cavern it looked like the expanse had been literally dissolved out of the rock. The quartz deposits in the sandstone jagged and untouched, almost beautiful protruding from the floor and walls.

Her struggle was broken by laughter.

"Pull all you want but it won't do you any gooooooood," The dark mage mocked.

"What do you want?" Her voice sounded foreign to her own ears. The sudden hate in it was so unfamiliar.

The figure came into view. The man's grey and slowly blackening skin was stretched taught over his skull. Tears tricking from his completely black eyes. His body almost skeletal now. So undeniably frail. He was having difficulty walking as he lumbered out of the shadow into view. The side of his head where Gajeel had struck was oozing a tar like substance she could only assume was old blood. She'd sworn he was dead when they'd loaded him into the wagon four days ago. They'd clearly not been too far from the truth.

"I just want you to read me a story, word mage," He licked his lips and what passed as his tongue made Levy want to retch. The wizard was decomposing from the inside.

Reaching under his robes he withdrew a book that Levy didn't immediately recognize but even with the effects of the cuffs she felt the power from it. It was one of the Tartarus tomes.

The man raised an eyebrow at her.

"Have we reached the part where you tell me you won't do anything I ask..." He chuckled and extended a hand, rotating it in a repetitive motion. "...and then I threaten big black and useless hanging here, and then teary eyes and you give me what I want?" He smiled and Levy wanted nothing more than to punch him.

"Yeah." She bit her lip and focused on the pain rather than think about Gajeel hanging there. Judging by the blood and his colour he didn't have long. Dragon slayers healed fast and were pretty resilient but without his magic he was in need of medical care. She knew this mage would never let them go alive but she could only hope to play along and wait for an opportunity.

"Oh, that's splendid," He clasped long fingers together and smiled that wide eyed smile again. From the floor in front of her rose a pedestal and the mage place the book on it and selected a particular page. "I want you to push some power into these words. I want you to read them and I want you make them flesh," Levy gave him a look, one eyebrow raised.

"My magic can't do that," She spat.

The smile grew wider and images of the wizard melting in his own acid bubbled up to the fore of Levy's mind. "Oh, but the book _can_. It just needs a more compatible mage to use it. Written script, spoken, it's all just power and words isn't it," He laughed.

Levy yanked on the cuffs and felt herself snarling.

"You're going to have to take these off then," She hissed.

The smile remained which infuriated her.

"Actually I don't," He rested a finger on the book and Levy felt a painful pull behind her eyes. "I linked it to you days ago when I realised they'd sent me a script mage, I'd almost given up when I saw you. A gift from Zeref himself." Levy renewed her struggle against the chains but they held. "Don't bother with those, the only magic you can wield now is in this book because you know very well those cuffs don't work against demonic power," He traced a finger down her cheek and she recoiled.

He pointed at the pool of blood underneath Gajeel's feet and it started to bubble, fumes rising from it's surface before the ground beneath the dragon slayers feet caved down to become a pit of acid. Gajeel gagged, even in his semi-conscious state. The man waved a hand at the chain suspending the dragon slayer and Levy heard rather than saw the chain be hit; the audible sizzling and smoke billowing from it left no illusion. She had even less time than she'd originally thought. She could hear her heart beat in her chest, pounding against her ribs. She ground her teeth and in that instance she imagined wrapping her hands around the mage's neck and snapping it. She felt a trill of a response at the distant edges of her mind. She glared at the pages of the book trying to understand the words she seemed to be able to instinctively read. If she opened her mouth she could make the corresponding sounds but she didn't know what they meant. The dark mage smiled again at her, glancing up at Gajeel's chain. "Hurry now, you've only got about a minute," She sobbed. She could feel it; she could feel it invading her thoughts. Whispering to her. But her mind was in a panic. "READ THE WORDS. READ THEM NOW!" She heard someone yell but she couldn't be sure if it was the mage or the book shouting at her in her mind. There was too much happening. Gajeel was going to die. She could see it. She could hear him screaming, his screams morphing into her own. A rage filled her. Anger. Pain. Fear. Hatred. _I love you!_

The chain snapped and he fell and her voice carried out. She didn't hear the word she screamed. The word that her deepest mind drew in her thoughts and forced onto the pages of the book. Her voice rang out with the single word 'TITANIUM', her power leached from her and now made reality by sheer force of will.

She heard the splash as her stomach rolled and the dark mage took some hasty steps back. She wept in silence. Her breaths the only ragged sound above the bubbling from the pool. She begged to some deity to hear her and relief let her sag against the rock as a silver white figure crawled out of the pit. Fumes rising from blistered but whole limbs. An expression on his face Levy had never seen before. One that might have terrified her had she seen it directed at anyone but this man. A sick chill of pleasure swarmed inside her as she watched the dark mage cower from him. The dragon slayer's fist shot out and a long iron pole collided with the wall behind the man's head; stone falling from the ceiling and the room shaking with the force. The wizard was pleading for mercy now. garbled words that made no sense between the sobs. An altogether pitiful attempt considering the horrors they'd witnessed him commit first hand. As he pressed himself flush against the wall she saw rifts of skin opening up on his face, bone and black blood visible in the torchlight. He was growing frailer by the moment. Whatever he'd wanted her to weave into reality, she'd wager had been to restore him. She watched the last of the cuffs melt from Gajeel's wrists and there was a sudden power saturating the air the likes of which few mages would ever really experience. She looked at his face and realized that Gajeel was going to kill him. Not in self defense. Not an impassive execution. He was going to kill him. Painfully. Slowly. While the man begged. She couldn't blame him. This man needed to die.

But somewhere inside her she knew that Gajeel couldn't be the one to do it. A thought that was given authority by the forces contained in the book. Voices that whispered to her 'retribution', 'vengeance' and 'justice'. This was all her fault after all. It wasn't Gajeel's failure that had cost those men their lives. It wasn't his decision to split up. It shouldn't be him that has to do this. One more sin to weigh him down in life. The images of the dead scrolled across her vision Levy heard the words ' _Punish him!,'_ explode in her mind. What magic she had she screamed to the book.

"BREAK!"

The dark mage collapsed screaming and thrashing. The noise of over two hundred bones simultaneously breaking rang out in the silence of the cavern amid high pitched wails. Shards of bone tearing into flesh. Limbs bent at wrong angles. The most pitiable weeping. Gajeel was broken from his advance, snapped from the seemingly unstoppable need to rip the man in front of him apart. Eyes now drawn to Levy, his face paling at her appearance. Black tendrils had begun to spread across her temples into her eyes. Her lips pulled back into a snarl. A look on her face that drained all the rage from him in moments. He saw it before she said it.

Don't!" He pleaded.

"DIE!" She just about whispered before her eyes closed and the last of her power fell away; the link to the book severing. But it was enough. The dark mage stopped thrashing, his ribs ripped outward from his body leaving his organs exposed. As Gajeel watched in horror the body began to disintegrate. He looked away. Levy now hung forward, limp and un-moving but he could see the raspy rise and fall of her chest.

Gajeel ripped the book from it's pedestal and threw it into the vat of acid. The pool solidifying as the book disappeared to nothing. As the last pages vanished his skin resumed his more natural colour, with the tome destroyed, the link to her magic disappeared.

He ripped her chains away and held her to him for a moment. Just to reassure himself that she was still alive. That she was okay.

"Hey...you..." Levy's voice sounded so small crushed against his chest but it meant everything and more to him. She blinked and he watched as the woman's eyes widened as she caught sight of the remains, slumped against the wall, recalling bits and pieces of the last few minutes. "...what did I do?" She was paler now than she'd ever been. "It couldn't have been me...I'd never...what did I do?" She struggled in his arms but her motions lacked any real strength. Sobs of despair shook her body but no tears came with them.

"You saved my life." He whispered to her as she stilled.

Gajeel continued to hold her until she lost consciousness and carried her outside into the cold air. The cavern wasn't far from where they'd been taken. The mound of corpses still visible if he looked closely between the trees. He sat down with Levy cradled in his lap waiting for the sun to come up. The first tint of oranges and red were already visible on the horizon. The wind was biting into the open wounds on his side. He wasn't going to make it back to camp carrying her even though it was only a few miles away and there was no way he would ever be leaving her side again. He didn't want to have to signal for help; the camp was so close that when the sun came up he wagered he'd be able to see it but there was no choice now.

Taking out a small lacrima flare he hurled it skyward and watched it explode above them. A giant blue arrow made of cloud pointing down at their location. It was one of Levy's. Gajeel laughed bitterly. He had been worried that the signal would be missed. She shivered in her sleep and he planted a light kiss on her head, cradling her close.

"Help'll be here soon. Don't worry, Shrimp. Gonna be okay," He whispered to her.

The words felt like lies.


	4. Chapter 4

Notes

Again, I can't thank the reviewers enough. As for there being a problem in Council, well, I'm planning on tying in a certain council members defection from the manga into the storyline so if you aren't very up to date on the manga you might want to skip that one. Don't worry I'll give you plenty of warning.

* * *

Gajeel wasn't the type to hover over Levy. If she was working and he wanted to be near her he would often sit quietly on their bed at the far end of the studio they shared near the council headquarters, and occupy himself reading whatever was handy. If she was upset or she wanted to be left alone he would always keep his distance. Not knowing exactly how one went about treating a girlfriend he did the only thing he could think of and treated her the way he'd want to be treated. So far that approach seemed to have worked fine. For all their differences, they really were so very much alike in so many ways. They were creatures of solitude at heart though they often spent their time in busy environments. They both protected the things they loved fiercely and when it came to their magic they took pride in being very, _very_ good in their respective fields. And according to the gospel of Lily they both had stubborn streaks a mile wide.

Yet for all of their intrinsic similarities there were things that were just so different and subsequently, things that had changed between them in the time they'd been together. Patience was one. Gajeel had never had much of it before Levy, whereas she was one of the most patient people he'd ever known. The fact that she'd hung around him for so long, waiting while it he figured out he liked her was proof enough. Saint Levy. Build a statue of her, she deserves it. He'd sort of absorbed some of these little traits from her as well. Patience. Courtesy – not a lot of that mind you, but more. In every way he often wondered how much of a better man she made him, and made him want to be.

It was a concern then when he started to see something darker in her. If she made him better he frequently worried that he was changing her for the worse. Levy had never shown an ounce of cruelty before. She rarely if ever lost her temper and when push came to shove on the more unsavoury council jobs she'd still be advocating mercy till the bitter end. That had started changing in the last number of weeks. She was less tolerant. More agressive. Her nightmares were bad but she still refused to talk about them. Not with him. Not with Lily. Despite the fact that he'd been there to witness it all firsthand. She was a wonderful person, far more than he deserved to be sharing with the world, but there was a darkness creeping in since that night in the woods.

Gajeel had become quite adept at managing the darker aspect of living; to live with the things he'd seen and done was a skill that took years of practice and experience. It was something he'd never wanted Levy to have to deal with. He'd counted it as one of his worst sins; failing to protect her from a burden as heavy as taking a life.

As unobservant as Gajeel sometimes was even he could plainly see the changes in her. She smiled less. Worked more. Normally a sad looking puppy on the street would elicit a teary reaction but nothing. She'd become so hollow; the bright ebb and flow of her usually good nature had begun to still, stagnate and he wasn't sure there was anything he could do to stop it. He'd suggested they both leave the council's employ, knowing Lily would follow. After all, the Exceed was only working there because of them. She'd halfheartedly told him she'd consider it and then nothing after that. He wagered that night had hit her harder than he'd thought and when she couldn't process it she stopped processing anything. She walked around like she was a pale imitation replica of the real thing. A fact worsened by their current profession. Losing the good in yourself could be very easily done working for the council. _In the absence of light, darkness will grow_

Gajeel was sitting on the edge of their empty bed while this all occurred to him. He found himself alone in it far too many nights lately while she worked till dawn; occasionally falling asleep on the couch or at her desk. For Gajeel enemies were usually things he could see and smell and pummel into submission. Yet here he was watching the woman he loved die slowly. Stripped away piece by piece by very real but infuriatingly intangible monsters that he couldn't see or fight off with her. _Woman he loved._ The thought made him pause; droplets appeared on his gloved hands and it came as a shock to find himself crying. _Stupid, stupid man. You really are an idiot, Gajeel!_ He chided himself; unsure how but deep down convinced that this was his fault.

So lost in his own world of self-blame he didn't notice the soft footsteps approach. He jerked his head back in surprise at the hand that came to rest on his head, fingers gliding through his hair.

"Who would have thought I'd ever finally get the jump on 'Black Steel' Gajeel?" Levy laughed softly but it didn't quite reach her hazelnut eyes.

"I…just don't know how to help you," He whispered to her.

It took her a moment to understand what it was he was talking about but she was a smart woman and it wasn't the first time he'd voiced concerns. She wasn't going to deny that she was having a tough time of it lately.

"You just being here for me is enough," She cooed into his hair after sinking to her knees at his feet and embracing him. "I'm just a little bit lost right now. Everything is so muddled up," He could hear her voice waver. "I can't stop making these terrible choices and people keep getting hurt. I can't…." She stuttered. "Really, the only thing that keeps me going is you. The Levy you love is a good person," she finally admitted.

He understood something then that hadn't occurred to him. The idea that he'd become her anchor was so foreign a concept that it took his mind a whole minute to digest the information. Should it not have been the other way round?

"It shouldn't have been you," He choked out. "It shouldn't have had to be you."

For the first time in weeks he saw something flicker across her eyes, felt her breath speed up just a notch. He saw a reaction.

"No." She affirmed. Gajeel looked at her quizically. "No, I won't let you shoulder all that evil by yourself. We're in this together," She cupped his face firmly and looked him resolutely in the eyes. The Levy he'd bolted to a tree seemed a very long time ago now. This woman would have eaten her up and spat out the bones. "Till the end. Whatever happens. I know I'm a bit scarred, you were right, I'm not the same, but I'm still me and I've been a prim and proper mage most of my life. I think I can take a black mark or two. So long as you don't have to, it's worth it."

The man stilled. Too stunned into silence to really know how to respond to that. It was one thing to die for someone you loved.

It was another to kill for them.


	5. Chapter 5

Notes

Just because the last few chapters are a little heavy this is a lighter chapter. Much fluff. Such awwwww. There is a bonus smut chapter directly after this. Warning folk, if melty soldiers don't convey it I'll tell you now, rated M for many good reasons.

Again, I want to thank those who've reviewed. There's two more chapters already written and then it might slow down. But there's a Halloween special mostly written in the same vein so you won't be completely bored waiting for more.

* * *

"And I swear, we were passing the bar to go to the station the next day and those buffoons were still stuck to that table. Barman had them moved outside out in the rain. Left 'em there," Gajeel's hysterical, alcohol fuelled laughter brought a smile to Lily's face. It was a welcome change to see him so jovial considering events over the last number of weeks. It reminded him of being back at the Fairy Tail guild hall. Regardless of what was happening outside there were always laughing mages inside the doors. Lily came back to the story Gajeel was relaying about Levy and their last trip into Crocus for the council.

"That sounds a tad much, considering, doesn't it?" He spoke seriously but the Exceeds side grin couldn't be contained no matter how stoic he tried to make his face.

"Yeah, well, Lev ain't been the most forgiving lately. Woman's picked up a mean streak a mile wide," The dragon slayer's laughter died out and he wiped away the tears gathering at his eyes from the lack of oxygen.

Lily let out a breath and nodded. "Truly," He said. The cat put his paws together and raised an eyebrow. "So, am I going to foolishly assume you've actually managed to put together something _good_ for tomorrow?" He asked, expectantly.

The dragon slayer took another long swig from his tankard and gave Lily a shrug. The Exceed sighed in exasperation. "Oh come on, you can tell me. I'm not going to steal it or something," He tapped his chin. "Maybe you've something planned. Well, apart from the dinner of course," There was still nothing from Gajeel. Lily was losing patience. "Fine, if you don't want to tell me. I suppose I'll find out when she does."

The dragon slayer gave him a 'have you lost your mind?' look. "What the hell are you talkin' about?" He asked.

Lily gave him a dead eyed stare. Not truly comprehending how the man had missed all the cards and pretty much every single person over the last few days saying it to her because she'd taken the day in question off. The Exceed put his face in his hands.

"Oh for the love of all of creation… _Gajeel Redfox,"_ Lily growled frustratedly. "Her _birthday_ is tomorrow." There was stunned, panicked silence. " Your _girlfriend's_ birthday. Technically, in about two hours if you want to get pedantic about it. Nothing. You've really remembered _nothing_?" He bellowed earning the pair a few raised eyebrows at the surrounding tables.

"Shut up, cat," Gajeel snapped. Although it was clear to Lily it was to cover absolute, immense shame. He blundered and was now going to need help, but of course, Gajeel being Gajeel, couldn't just _ask_ for it.

Lily pulled a satchel from his side and deposited it in front of the dragon slayer. When he emptied it onto the counter a polished cerulean stone tumbled out. Gajeel choked. It was just a few shades off the colour of her hair and when the light hit it, it deepened with caramel colour veins the colour of her eyes. "This is _my_ gift," He announced.

The dragon slayer balked. "Oh crap," He uttered. It was a really beautiful, pretty thoughtful gift. Lily grew to full size and punched Gajeel square in the face. The man falling backwards in his chair. "What the _hell_ was that for?" He growled at the Exceed who towered over him menacingly.

"That was to sober you up," He kicked the prone Gajeel in the shins. "We have a long night ahead of us," He smiled. "That is unless you want to find yourself paralyzed with runes sitting outside the garrison in your shorts tomorrow night?"

* * *

The overnight trip into the town sapped all the fight out of Gajeel who'd insisted on complaining to Lily for the entire venture. By the time they reached the town on foot, because of course there were no carriages at midnight they could have hired in, the sun was breaking the sky in the distance and Gajeel was half asleep on his feet, only vaguely aware of why they were even here.

Much to his irritation Lily was wide awake and bursting with energy.

Gajeel hated morning people.

"I was thinking, books, there are some great book stores here. I'm sure one of them has something that might pique her interest." Lily offered.

Gajeel snorted "I already thought of that, you any idea how many books Shorty actually owns? You know she rents a storage room for them?" He scoffed at the Exceed. "I could walk into a book store and buy the rarest, priciest thing they got and Lev would probably have two copies already."

Lily's expression soured.

"You can't possibly tell me she has every book ever written," He argued with Gajeel.

"She doesn't need to own 'em all. Just more than _I_ know about. Don't know the name of every book she has," The dragon slayer complained and Lily realised he had a point.

This definitely required more thinking. Preferably after some food. The Exceed's stomach growled its agreement.

Over a breakfast of bacon and pancakes Lily made idle chit chat while he mentally searched for the answer to their current problem. If it were Gajeel he'd have just gotten him a weapon. The man didn't personally use any in combat but he sure did love to collect them…occasionally they even vanished as late night snacks. Levy wasn't a weapon person though. Not a using kind. Not a collecting kind.

"You _can_ be rather thoughtful sometimes. Letting her take care of those drunks her own way was much more considerate than I would give you credit for," The cat trailed off, absently musing.

"Gotta face facts that there might be some times when I ain't around. My reputation ain't enough to keep her free and clear of leering drunk bastards forever." He grinned. " _Her_ growin' reputation as a mage that'll paralyze a half a dozen men and leave them outdoors in the elements might take her a little farther, though," He smirked. "That and she's hella cute when she's pissed off."

Lily quirked an eyebrow at him. "It must be _true love_ ," He intoned, mocking the dragon slayer.

Gajeel's expression darkened as though he'd been cursed out. "I _never_ said that," He shoveled a piece of pancake into his mouth and swallowed without chewing.

Lily glared at him, "But it is the truth, and you should perhaps consider telling her so."

"Yeah well, ain't that simple," More pancake disappeared from the plate.

"You and Levy McGarden are walking, talking romance novel characters, Gajeel. And if you genuinely don't think you love that woman more than life itself then you're deluding yourself," Lily snapped but Gajeel was quiet, expression impassive. "You need to make it simple. Look at where we are, Gajeel?" He gestured around. "Why are we in this town again? Are we buying supplies? No," He slapped the palm of his paw down on the table, rattling the cutlery. "No, Gajeel, we're here to find your girlfriend a birthday present." He smiled a little softer. "You didn't spend six hours walking with a hangover, partially drunk in the dark for someone you just _like_ ," The tone broached no argument. Gajeel knew he loved her. It was just hard saying the words out loud. They made him feel vulnerable.

The dragon slayer looked simultaneously guilty, exhausted and if Lily wasn't mistaken, flushed. It was a topic of much amusement to the Exceed. Levy was living with them. She shared a bed with Gajeel, although they both swore blind that nothing happened in it but sleep. They'd already proven able and willing, happy even, to die for each other. They were inseparable. And Gajeel was being an idiot over what should have been a very straightforward process.

"Admitting it is the first step to moving forward," The cat smiled a cheshire grin. "and you, my stubborn friend, are in deep,"

Gajeel put his head in his hands and made a pitiable noise. The waitress in the café gave Lily a concerned look as she passed with drinks for the neighbouring table.

"He forgot his girlfriend's birthday," The Exceed whispered to her from behind a paw although it really made no difference considering Gajeel would hear it either way.

A knowing look crossed the young woman's face and she stifled a laugh.

"You need the standard set then," She remarked. "Necklace, flowers, cake or chocolate. This is the city of flowers you know. Then if you want to get her something really special you can do it in your own time," She patted Lily on the head as she passed then and the Exceed turned back to a hopeful Gajeel.

"And you didn't want to eat here?" The cat grinned.

* * *

In the years of rebuilding since the grand magic games that saw half the city reduced to ash, Gajeel could only remark at how expensive things had gotten. The dragon slayer was currently standing open mouthed in the jewellery store contemplating the value of a human life, because he'd been on jobs that had almost _killed him_ in Fairy Tail and earned less than the cost of the trinket he was staring at.

Even Lily was flabbergasted. "That's an extortionate price," The Exceed was still stammering when Gajeel grabbed him by the back and tried to drag him out. The shopkeeper wasn't having any of their criticism.

"The gem trade isn't what it used to be and the stone merchants have been avoiding Crocus since the Dragons." He huffed. "You want cheaper I suggest you try one of those smaller, backwoods towns, or buy the lady a bunch of flowers to apologise," He shooed them out. "Now if you don't mind…"

The door didn't necessarily hit Gajeel on the ass on the way but it may as well have for all the notice it would have drawn from him. "I'm so _screwed_ ," He bellowed. The blinds inside the shop came barrelling down in response.

Lily patted his boot in comfort. "It's okay. There's more than enough gems to get…." The Exceed did a double-take. Gajeel's gem pouch was gone. The leather strap cleanly cut from his belt. Stolen. "….and it would be gone, wouldn't it."

The dragon slayer stood motionless in the street for several awkward seconds of silence before a smile crept across his face.

"I'm gonna find my money, then I'm gonna kill the bastard that robbed me," He snarled.

Lily shrugged in defeat. Why couldn't anything be straightforward? "Well we can't do anything without money so I suppose it's as a productive use of our time as any," The Exceed glanced up hopefully at his friend. "I don't suppose your dragon slayer nose is going to be much help?"

Gajeel grinned. "There's few of those stinking flare lacrima in there," He angled his head and took a quick whiff of the air. "So yeah, we got a direction."

It was still early enough that the streets lacked their usual bustle and there wasn't too much difficulty in following the smell. Gajeel's nose took them through a half a dozen alleys, a market place, over a bridge and into the still partially destroy ruins on the outskirts of town that hadn't been cleared away even after all this time. There was at the very least two miles of ruined roads, destroyed buildings gutted homes. It didn't appear like much of what had been left had been touched at all. There was even the lingering stench of burnt flesh and death. This would have been the poorer section of the city. It was the same wherever you went, when things got tough it was usually the ones with money that got climbed the first step toward recovery.

Lily stopped Gajeel in his tracks. While the dragon slayer had been following his nose Lily had luckily been watching their feet. He gestured to a set of fresh footprints in the gravel and quirked an eyebrow at Gajeel. The dragon slayer examined the fresh foot print and brought his horizontal palm to about chest height. Lily scoffed at him. "Really?" before moving Gajeel's hand about three inches lower to just above his waist. Correcting the height of the owner of the print.

"I'd wager about ten, maybe eleven years old," The Exceed mused absently. "Did you learn to track from cereal box instructions, perhaps, Gajeel?" The Exceed mocked.

Gajeel huffed. His nose may have had him beat but Lily was clearly a far superior tracker overall. "Great, can't even pound on them when we find 'em," He remarked, irritated now. He took another sniff of the air and frowned. "The scent is everywhere here. Little shit must have doubled back at some point, muddied the trail."

Lily and Gajeel followed the tracks in the gravel and when that trail failed them and they lost the footsteps on harder ground, they followed the sound of scraping rock; the muffled noises always just on the cusp of hearing. An hour after they began their hunt they found a building, mostly intact despite the destruction still around them. There wasn't a single window in what was left of the once two storey house, now reduced to a single ground floor; the roof and side wall of the floor above having been destroyed. It would have looked completely abandoned if not for the wooden board that had been placed up against the front entrance from the inside and the smell of a recent fire from inside.

Even Gajeel paled at the thought of a kid living out here in this.

"I think I should go in first. They might get the wrong idea if _you_ turn up at their door," Lily commented not so subtly hinting that perhaps Gajeel might want to lay up on the scowling. The dragon slayer glared even harder.

The Exceed decided on a quick look around before he made any decisions on how to go about doing this. When he flew up to the second storey he found that they'd already blocked up the stairs. The only real way on was through one of the open windows below.

"Hello? Is there anybody here?" He called out moving in through the window when he didn't get any reply.

The room was dim but in the darkness huddled under some blankets a small child lay shivering. The boy couldn't have been more than six years old. Not who they were looking for but perhaps a start. The Exceed put on his friendliest face before approaching any closer, thankful for once for his diminutive size. "I don't mean to startle you but we're looking for…someone…" As he moved closer he realized that something was indeed very wrong with the boy. His eyes were unfocused, looking passed Lily completely, though the almost panicked motion of his small head indicated that he'd heard him. Beads of sweat glistened on his head.

Lily called for Gajeel and shushed the small child who was now making barely audible terrified noises. The Exceed moved his hand across the child's vision and grimaced when there was no reaction. He didn't know if the child had always been blind or if it was a reaction to the fever.

"I'm not here to hurt you. My name's Lily. Can you speak?" He asked, resting a soft paw on the boy's head. The child relaxed, smiling softly and leaned into it. The blanket he was laying under was clean but abrasive in comparison to the soft fur of Lily's paws. Gajeel climbed in through the window, silently. The room smelled like sickness to him and despite his otherwise intimidating demeanor the dragon slayer wasn't able to wipe away the concern from his features.

"I'm Alwin. _You're so fuzzy_ ," The boy was genuinely smiling now as he started to run his hands over a suddenly very awkward and embarrassed Lily's head and face. The Exceed looked to the dragon slayer for help but Gajeel just grinned and shrugged. The fever looked to actually be breaking, he'd probably be just fine in a few days. Except for his sight that was.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Alwin," There were giggles as a whisker was pulled. "…OUCH…yes…no, please don't pull that," The Exceed finally calmed the child down. "Are you here alone, Alwin?" He asked carefully.

The boy sat himself up a little and his head turned in Gajeel's direction, head tilted. Gajeel hadn't said anything but the boy could sense he was there. Definitely blind longer than the fever the dragon slayer wagered.

"My sister is here," The boy muttered sheepishly. "She goes out before the sun and brings back breakfast," His stomach made a grumbling noise to prove the point. Gajeel scoffed and the boy frowned. "…mr grumpyface…" The child whispered under his breath.

Lily quirked an eyebrow. "You can see him? You can see my friend?" He asked.

The boy grinned and sat up fully, a look of concentration on his face as he stared in Gajeel's direction. "He's just grumpy cause he's sad. He's always forgetting important stuff, he doesn't want her to be sad as well," A small brow crinkled in thought. "He forgot to oil your swords while you were away," The boy added with a smile.

Gajeel yelled. "I did not forget! I do NOT forget stuff."

Lily laughed out loud. The boy was right. "That is an incredible gift for someone so young," He exclaimed ruffling the child's hair. For a sick little boy he had unusual focus with his magic. Maybe it was on account of the lack of sight. "Tell me, what about me?" He asked.

"You miss your home…" The boy sounded sad "…and you want your friend to name his babies after you,"

Silence descended. Gajeel giving Lily a glare worthy of Acnologia himself.

"Is that what you're after you bastard cat?" Gajeel growled at him before his face paled. "WHAT BABIES?"

Lily's face fell.

"Well…if there are…if you and Levy…..all just ifs, Gajeel!" He muttered angrily.

The little boy laughed now. A tiny empath with a gift for gathering secrets. Read the mood then pick up on a secret closest to the surface. Lily felt a pang of sadness. When he got older it was a gift that could get him in an awful lot of trouble.

The boy turned his head toward the window again and smiled; an enormous toothy grin splitting his face. When Lily looked though he couldn't see anything there. He looked to Gajeel and the dragon slayer gave him a beseeching look. _Be cool, cat!_ Was the unspoken message. With a motion much too fast to avoid Gajeel snapped his hand out and seemed to strain hoisting something mid-air. The resulting yell was followed by enough curse words to turn Gajeel's ears pink as a scrawny girl about twelve years old materialized. The small boy seemed nonplussed about the whole encounter. He was still looking at her smiling. Then his expression changed. Tears welled up in his eyes.

"Did you really steal all their money? How could you do that?" His lip was trembling and the little girls face was going red with shame in the face of it. Her struggles ceased and she hung there limply. Gajeel knew very well why she'd steal. If she wanted her little brother and herself to live she really hadn't had much choice. Lily's timing was impeccable as he cut off the girl before she could dig this hole any deeper.

"Oh no! No, we lent your sister the money. It's fine. That's why we're here, she was just returning it to us," The Exceed pulled the blankets up around the boy and tucked him back in. "You should rest. We'll just be outside so we don't disturb you," He ruffled the boy's hair one last time before he flew out the window. The child's confused glare following. Gajeel moved the wood blocking the front door and followed, still clutching the girl by the back of her ragged shirt.

When he placed her down she tore the pouch from her belt and threw it at his feet, snarling.

"You can take it then. But it's not all there. I spent some of it on medicine for him and you can throw me in council jail or something, I don't care but you ain't getting that." Her narrow chin had to angle steeply to meet Gajeel's eyes from her height. He grinned at her but whether she found him intimidating or not he couldn't tell. She certainly didn't smell afraid. He plucked up the pouch and bounced it in the palm of his hand. Definitely lighter but certainly not that much gone. The girl glared back at him and he had to stifle the "gee hi hi" that was bubbling in his chest. She reminded him so much of himself at that age it was scary. He hoped when he did have children they had even half of this girl's backbone and strength. He thought of little blue haired demons running around and the image didn't frighten him like he thought it would. Like he knew it should. _What have you done to me, devil woman?_ A voice in his head laughed.

Decision made Gajeel tossed the pouch back to her.

"Keep it. The lacrima in there are flares as well. If you need help or a distraction or something," He trailed off with a wave of his hands.

The girl was confused to say the least. Lily smiled broadly at him, practically beaming with pride. Gajeel didn't exactly have a reputation for nobility.

"My name is Pantherlily and this is Gajeel. You can just call me Lily," The Exceed gave a little bow. "If you ever run into any council men during your _endeavors_ , just tell them you're on a job for us and they won't ask you any more than that," The cat removed his own coin pouch and tossed it to her. She caught it smiling. "But do try not to get caught," He remarked dryly.

Gajeel was going to turn away but his feet for some reason wouldn't budge. He took a breath. "There are still a few faces over in the castle that owe me a favour or two. If you ever want to get out of this place, go to this address," Gajeel took a shard of burnt wood and scrawled an address on the outside of the wooden door. "He'll make sure you're looked after," He finished.

The girl's bright blue eyes shone underneath dirty strawberry blond bangs. She didn't rush to hug him or cry or gush or something and Gajeel was secretly grateful for that. He didn't do well with the mushy stuff, but she did smile at him and give a mocking salute before vanishing into thin air. "My name's Mara, by the way," echoed in her absence followed by a laugh. She had a flair for the dramatics. Gajeel could respect that too.

The walk back to town was a grueling one as the rain had started not long after. With no money to their names now to even hire a carriage back the pair faced the long trek to HQ. Tired, hungry, and soaking wet.

About two miles from their home Gajeel stopped in the middle of the road and fell to his knees in the rain.

"I'M A FUCKING IDIOT!" He roared at the top of his voice. Birds flew from the surrounding trees, shaken with the thunder of it. Gajeel looked at Lily's suddenly worried face. "….birthday…" He could only mumble.

The Exceed grew in height and dragged him to his feet.

"Here, give her this," He handed the dragon slayer the gem he'd be been meaning to give her himself. "You did a good thing today. If she knew it would mean much more to her than some flowers or some overpriced rock."

Gajeel blanched, stark white in shock. "I can't take this," He spoke, resigned.

"You can and you will," Lily insisted.

The dragon slayers body turned to iron and from his head he ripped a few strands of metal hair. Unlike regular iron, these were flexible, durable and would be far stronger. He knotted the ends and Lily watched him weave the most delicate looking chain he'd ever seen. It was, dare he even describe anything Gajeel could make as such _, truly exquisite_. When he'd made the chain he conjured a tiny piece of metal, pressed into the shape of a flower and began carving a few designs on the front and the back with a thumbnail. He placed the stone at its heart and fixed it in place; small iron arms growing out of the flower to lock it there.

"You're in the wrong profession, Gajeel," Lily told him, stunned. It was beautiful. And there wouldn't be another like it in all of Fiore. The dragon slayer scratched the back of his head, a little embarrassed.

"I doubt it," He deadpanned.

By the time they returned home it was getting dark. Lily decided to give Gajeel and Levy the evening and disappeared into the night leaving a somewhat nervous looking dragon slayer climbing the stairs to their apartment. When he reached their door his hands hovered over the handle momentarily before he strolled in. He did his very best to pretend he wasn't nervous. His ears felt like they were _burning_ from the hot blood assaulting him and he could _feel_ the redness.

He didn't see Levy until she'd collided with his mid-section. With her hands fisted in his shirt she pulled him down and wrapped her arms around his neck.

He put his hands behind her head and when he pulled back from her the necklace hung there.

"I really do love you, Shrimp! Happy Birthday," He planted a much softer kiss on her lips and grinned at her.

She gave him a look of confusion before she burst out laughing. His expression darkened. "What?" He half-growled.

"Oh gods! I'd completely forgotten. It is, isn't it," She laughed before looking down to the iron and stone hanging around her neck. "This...this is amazing. Did you _make_ this?" Gajeel looked extra smug and she beamed at him. "I love you _so much_. Thank you for this," She whispered tears shining at the corners of her eyes. The dragon slayer brushed the back of his fingers across her cheek and leaned down for another kiss.

He wasn't expecting the forceful, hands in his hair, crushing reciprocation he got.

 _Happy Birthday, Lev._


	6. Chapter 6

Notes

This chapter is pure smut. To be fair, in many years of writing I've never once written a smut scene. Id ask that you please be kind. But critisicism is only fair :) If they aren't your thing or you're of the younger persuasion then, please, skip this one. I promise there will be more chapters to come.

* * *

The kiss was almost painful in it's need and want, the sheer savagery of it addled his senses. In the moments between breaths there was only the feel of her hands woven in his hair and the warmth shared between them as she seemed intent on pressing into every inch of stomach and hip and leg and chest. He breathed her in and for more than a moment, forgot himself entirely. There was nothing beyond the feel of her skin on his and the desire in every touch they shared. The corner of a table prodded him sharply in the buttocks, slapping him out of the moment with cold reality. He came to his senses and pulled back to glance at the blue haired woman in front of him. Somehow they'd moved nearly ten feet from the doorway to the kitchen table without him even noticing. Levy, while he'd been senseless from the kiss, had already managed to unbutton half his damp shirt and remove her own. Now clad in shorts and a bra she smiled up at him.

"You okay?" She let her hands fall to his chest where they now rested, radiating a heat he couldn't quite describe, the bulk of which was pooling in his stomach, moving lower. He didn't immediately reply and he saw her become unsure of herself, cheeks reddening ever so slightly. "We can stop if you want?" And she meant that. Gajeel Redfox had spent his life unsure of many a thing. In a lot of cases that included himself, but at this very moment the last thing on the earth he could wish for would have been a stop to this. He touched the necklace around her neck, feeling the growl that reverberated in his chest, and before Levy could pull away from him he leaned forward and resumed the kiss the table had broken. The renewed vigor of the kiss brought a delighted squeal from Levy.

They stayed like that locked together until the dragon slayer's back and neck began to ache from the angle. He trailed his fingertips down her sides and, crouching a little, cupped them under her rump and lifted her up. The force and speed at which the blue haired mage locked her thighs around his waist almost sent Gajeel to the floor but he managed to control the stagger and make it to the couch where he promptly sat down with the blue haired mage straddling him. His hands began exploring the soft lines of her body. Tracing light, callused fingertips up the woman's sides across her back and onto her shoulders. His touch finding every scar, every mark. Some of them he knew were his doing and he made himself brush those with utmost care. His hands revenant. She made small little squeaks into his mouth when he touched a particularly sensitive spot on her side and he allowed himself a moment to imagine what other noises she might be capable of making.

Her hands left his hair and started doing the same. Levy's nails leaving blisteringly sensational trails down his chest and arms that seemed to linger long after her hands had moved on; his body memorizing her touch. She reached down to the waistline of his pants and began pulling his shirt up and over his head.

They broke the kiss only briefly to facilitate the article of clothing coming off and as it dropped to the floor the dragon slayer suddenly became aware that it had landed beside the woman's already discarded bra. He sat back unsure of when or how she'd removed it. His jaw somewhat slack and his eyes wide. She grinned at the somewhat innocent expression that had become fixed across his normally gruff features. When she'd had enough of the staring she gently flicked him on the nose earning her an honest chuckle. Levy quirked an eyebrow at him in silent question while Gajeel stared at her chest for just another moment before gingerly cupping one of her breasts and squeezing lighly. When he traced his rough thumb over its surface he elicited his very first moan from the woman on his lap. He decided on the spot that he wanted more of those particular noises.

Levy McGarden was nothing if not a believer in being fair. She arched her back and rolled her hips forward against what she could already tell was becoming a moderately painful erection and Gajeel almost bit his own tongue along with the half strangled groan that slipped out. His hands latching onto her rear tightly as she did it again with a joyous laugh; somewhat delighted in her ability to reduce the man between her legs to a mewling pool of jelly. Gajeel smirked, burying his forehead in the hollow of her shoulder briefly before he moved his face down and with a flick of his tongue brushed the tip of one of the woman's erect nipples before covering it with his mouth and giving a playful nip before carefully circling with his tongue. His dragon nose was flooded with the smell of her arousal while her nails began digging into the solid muscle on his back. The inviting heat between her thighs left him almost unbearably uncomfortable. The next time Levy rolled her hips his own responded of their own accord; movements desperate and needy and punctuated with a deep greedy kiss.

Levy broke away then. Her hands still tangled in his hair she looked him in the eyes and didn't speak, not with words, instead she stood up and with the cutest shimmy she dropped her shorts at her feet and stood there baring every inch of herself to the dragon slayer. He followed her lead, standing and dropping his own pants, sliding out of his boots. He lowered his head to hers, their foreheads brushing briefly, a smile mirrored on both of their faces before he buried his in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of her hair and skin. Feeling the pulse of her beating heart on his lips.

At a far reduced speed Gajeel hoisted Levy back up to his waist and sat down carefully with her. The kiss this time came slowly, lips carefully brushing each other. Tongues gently moving between them. The dragon slayer's head fell back when he felt her hand brush the tip of his erection. Even to his ears it was a pitiable sound clawing it's way out of his throat, begging her for more. She obliged, carefully beginning to stroke him. The endeavor was a mindful process. Both parties acutely aware that the other may need to stop. That they were both so far out of their comfort zones and in very new territory, moving at incredible speeds.

"I want you. Is...is this what you want?" Her voice sounded so small but when Gajeel looked into her eyes he saw a woman with the power to turn all the demons in his soul to nothing but ash. He'd never want for anything else so long as he could walk with her, always.

"Haven't wanted anything else in a long time, Shorty," He murmured against her lips. A smile playing at hers.

The moment she slid the tip of him into her was the moment that Gajeel's grip on reality faltered. Pantherlily could have come barging in, Natsu could have set fire to the apartment, a hoard of dragons led by Acnologia himself could have descended on the town and the only thing he would have been aware of was the sensation of sinking into her. The _heat_ of it. They sat there for close to a minute, breathing deeply, the occasional moan escaping the woman on his lap as she adjusted to him. When she started to move Gajeel stopped breathing for a few seconds. Her arms wrapped around his neck she brought his face back down to her shoulder and he began to gently suckle and nip at the skin there before trailing kisses up and finding her earlobe with his tongue. Levy's breaths were coming in pants now broken only with breathy moans. Gajeel smirked and moved his hands to the woman's waist where he gripped her firmly before rolling his own hips and thrusting into her. It earned him a cry of pleasure as the woman's head fell back and he was fairly certain had he not had a firm grasp she'd have been in a tangled heap on the floor on top of his boots. He laughed and Levy's half-hearted cursing amused him even more. With the laughter still tugging at his lips he kissed her.

Standing, her legs still firmly locked around his waist, he made his way into the bedroom where he lay her down and committed the sight of her stretched out under him, with a halo of messy blue hair and pink flushed cheeks, to the most incorruptible and precious avenues of his memory. With his hands under her he pulled her close and thrust into her. Her hands gripped the sheets of the bed tightly and the cry that spilled across her lips was his name, repeated over and over like a prayer. He brought his hand to the swollen mound between her labia and began to stroke it in lazy circles. He could feel himself reaching his own climax as she seemed to reach hers; back arching off the bed with a half strangled cry as there was a shuddering around him. Within the next few thrusts he felt himself orgasm, the wave of blissful release dropped him forward. On his hands and knees his head resting between her breasts.

He let out a sigh before planting a kiss on her stomach. He was vaguely aware of the hands that had begun stroking his hair; carefully moving strands out of his face. When he looked up it was to a bright smile. Laying to the side of her he closed his eyes and felt her softly kiss his cheek before she slothfully rolled herself out of the bed and made a beeline for the bathroom to clean up. Watching her bare ass jiggle, Gajeel smiled.

He couldn't fathom how so many still believed that relationships made you weak... because right at that instance he'd have ripped a hole in the world with his bare hands to get to that woman.


	7. Chapter 7

Notes

Because, while Gajeel would never knowingly hurt Levy, he's literally twice her size, actually eats iron, has a terrible past and they share a bed. I'm expecting accidents to happen. Occasionally couples will wake up with the odd bruise. Of course, none of us are dating Iron Dragon Slayers.

* * *

For all the troubles of his past, Gajeel was a fairly sound sleeper. He didn't toss and turn the way Levy did when she was having a nightmare. He didn't make any sounds. Occasionally, if you squinted in the blackness you would be able to see the tightness around his eyes or an unmistakable grimace on his sweat covered face, but otherwise, there wasn't anything obvious there to tell you the Iron Dragon Slayer was having a bad dream. Levy could never tell if he was reliving some past terror or having a little bit of midnight gas. Gajeel would never admit to nightmares in the morning regardless so she often found it difficult to tell.

It's why the man bolting upright in the bed around 4am, a glazed shine to his hard eyes almost sent the script mage to the floor in a panic.

Gajeel snarled in the darkness. He'd grabbed her by the forearm just below the wrist and was holding her there with a painful vice-like grip. The limb was already bandaged up with ointment from a particularly painful incident involving a small ladder and a much too high bookshelf and the grip that might have been nothing more than painfully uncomfortable was eye watering, stomach churning agony for the script mage; his much larger hand wrapping around her arm completely.

Even with Levy openly wincing he didn't let her go and for the first time in years the script mage felt something like the fear she'd felt the night he'd crucified her and her team. The pain in her arm was an unfortunately familiar torture; his much stronger hand crushing the limb between steel-like fingers. His eyes were unfocused and he appeared to be staring passed her. She absently realized he was dreaming.

"Let me go, Gajeel," Her voice was even despite the twisting of her stomach and the grinding of her teeth. "It's just me, there's no one else here," She searched his eyes looking to explain the reaction but they weren't the eyes she'd become accustomed to. He growled. Honestly growled. Then he squeezed. Just a little tighter. Maybe just a fraction. Levy felt the crack more than heard it. The sensation made her see spots; her ears ringing with a static noise, bile climbing her throat. She sat there as the shock struck her in waves. Her hands shaking.

Blinking a few times, he finally fixed on her; releasing her from the iron grasp. There was a terse silence while Levy tried to calm her breathing.

"Are you okay? What was that?" The script mage asked him, her words stammered out in a small trembling voice.

"Nothing. Just forget about it," He scrubbed his face tiredly, not fully aware of the last minute before coming to his senses; words finally forced out between huffs of air. Voice low and his expression softening to reveal something akin to shame.

When he'd finally released her wrist Levy had let out an almost imperceptible hiss between clenched teeth. She let her arm drop and moved her hand out of sight. She didn't want him to see the fresh dark mark forming across the skin on her wrist or the painful trembling of her fingers. She reached out to him with her other hand but he tossed off the blanket and made a hasty exit from the bedroom; moving out of her reach. Her concerned eyes boring into him as he left, grabbing his clothes on the way.

She heard him in the living room getting dressed and the front door close a few minutes later. When she could be certain he'd left she brought her arm up and removed the current bandaging to inspect the bruising, Levy had to take a deep steadying breath. The darkening shadow was a growing, patchy area that was beginning to swell. A new shape forming to her slender wrist. Her fingers were painful to move, even touching them was agony. He'd just grabbed a hold of her arm but the damage that had done, sickened her. She hated feeling so breakable, like she was made of china or glass, she wasn't some fragile doll. She wrapped her arm around a solid script splint she'd made and took a draft of a pain killing potion from the nightstand. She'd never quite felt so weak. What troubled her the most was that the script mage and the dragon slayer had shared a bed for a few months now and this was the first time he'd ever had a nightmare like this. It looked like he'd been completely swallowed by the dream.

When she'd rewrapped her arm, she put on her coat and her gloves. Everyone was already aware that she'd bruised it badly in the library so some extra bandage wouldn't be noticed. She'd get by easily enough; the painkillers were Gajeel strength and her job wasn't very labour intensive. Eventually it would be spotted but by then it would hopefully look a little better. Gajeel hadn't intended to hurt her like that and it wouldn't do him any favours if he fell into another pit of guilt over something that wasn't even his fault. She would have to speak with him about it, though, she wasn't willing to be a midnight punching bag.

When Gajeel came home that night with Lily he was back to normal grinning self. They'd picked up some hot food on the way and Levy felt a little less anxious knowing he was alright. She laughed internally because here she was worrying about him and she couldn't even breathe painlessly. She just wanted to enjoy the meal and the jokes and the laughter. Thankfully the smile she'd spent her adult life perfecting fooled Gajeel for the majority of the evening but it turned out that Lily was more observant than the dragon slayer and where Levy would normally reach with her left she was reaching across with her right. Where she'd normally rest her elbows on the table cupping her face when she was tired she kept her left arm almost completely out of sight. He caught the winces she tried to hide. He'd seen enough injuries to be able to tell that this was more than the healing bruise from yesterday.

"You didn't go and fall off _another_ ladder, Levy?" He asked; laughing disbelievingly while she was moving her plate to the kitchen sink.

Her back to them the solid script mage could literally feel the heat from Gajeel's eyes start drilling into her. He might have been moderately unobservant sometimes but he wasn't a total idiot, and he remembered enough about the morning's events clearly enough to remember grabbing her. She didn't have to turn around to know that he was wearing a wide-eyed expression. She sucked in a deep breath when she heard his chair move. Trying to steel herself.

A rough hand on her shoulder spun her around but she refused to look at him. His eyes fixed on her arm, he gripped her by the elbow as softly as he could and lifted. Even the simple motion of manipulating the limb by the elbow caused her nausea inducing pain and when he tried to pull back the sleeve to look closer she reflexively pulled her arm free and moved away.

"It's fine. It's just a bruise," She found herself moving toward the front door but was stopped in her tracks when Lily floated into her path blocking her.

"Let _me_ look?" He asked softly. "Please?" And Levy relented.

"Okay," Her voice sounded more like a squeak than anything.

With Levy sitting at the kitchen table and Gajeel hovering by the sink, the Exceed gingerly pulled back the sleeve with expert care and started to peel away the bandage inch by inch. The black block text of the script word 'SPLINT' peeking out between the folds of fabric and fell away after a moment, vanishing into nothing. Levy didn't make a single sound throughout the entire process but couldn't stop a few tears falling when she saw just how bad it looked. The black crisscrossed lines and purple bruising were unmistakable in the light of day. Her arm was fractured. Even she couldn't tell how badly either, but the pattern of bruising was undeniably a broken bone. The wrist joint was a little misshapen with the swelling.

"You didn't even make a sound, Lev. You didn't say anything," Gajeel's face was a mixture of confusion and horror. "I didn't know…HOW COULD YOU LET ME DO THAT TO YOU?" He lost his composure and sank down onto the balls of his feet. Even making himself as small as he could he was still only a few inches smaller than her.

"It wasn't your fault. You were having a nightmare it…" A scream tore its way passed her lips mid-sentence as Lily took her distraction and relocated her wrist. She sucked in a deep breath, her eyes rolling back into her head and the world went black.

When Levy woke next she was lying flat. The world around her existed in a thick fog; her limbs weighed down by some intangible force. She tried moving but a soft paw held her down. Lily's voice the only clear thing she could recognize.

"Stay still. The medication has a few side-effects, you won't be able to move for a few hours yet while the bone starts to knit,"

Levy tried to smile but it came out as more a grimace.

"Where's….Gajeel?" She stumbled over the words. Her mouth was impossibly dry.

Lily gave her a genuine smile.

"Oh, he's hopefully sorting his thoughts out," He sighed. "I think even he knows that what happened was an accident but you were hurt, and in a way he needs someone to blame. In this case, himself," The Exceed carefully brushed a few strands of hair out of her face. "How does the arm feel? It's been a good few years since I've had to reset a bone. I'd reckon it was fractured to begin with from the fall but a solid grip from a Dragon Slayer probably helped it along, somewhat."

Despite his sudden and forceful objection Levy sat herself up unsteadily and lightly batted his hand away when he tried to guide her back down.

"You tell that Dragon Slayer to get his iron tushy back here before I get out of this bed and go looking," Levy ground out with a tight smile. This was precisely what she was afraid of. She _knew_ Gajeel wasn't going to be moving passed this easily.

Lily didn't doubt her threat. He knew better.

"Fine, but please don't get out of bed while I'm gone. I have no intention of resetting more bones when I come back," He wagged a finger at her.

Levy found sitting up helped clear her muddled head dramatically. Her arm tingled with the concoction floating through her body but she could move her fingers without pain again. Lily certainly knew what he was doing.

"Be quick, I've a small bladder and I promise nothing," She grinned at him and he left quickly in search of her wayward boyfriend.

Levy dozed off sitting in an upright position, her upper body supported against a few of the larger cushions, but when she woke up she was greeted with the sight of a brooding Gajeel sitting at the side of the bed on one of the kitchen chairs.

There was a somewhat awkward minute of silence. All the things Levy had been meaning to say to him seemed to have been lost to sleep and what she could only assume to be the lingering side effects of the drugs. Odd in these situations, Gajeel was the first one to speak.

"We pulled in Crowfoot last week," Gajeel sighed at Levy's look of confusion. "He was a member of Phantom back when it was around and he got caught stealing Council shipments. Nothing major. But when he saw me, the stupid fool didn't realize I was there to take him in." Gajeel laughed wistfully. "I was a monster back then. I must have been because I used to count him about as close a friend as you could get in Phantom. Juvia never liked the fuck, that should tell you everything."

Levy reached out her arms beckoning him closer and he moved over to sit on the edge of the bed where the script mage took a firm hold of his right hand. "People change. People are _meant_ to change," She smiled at him and gave his hand another squeeze. "I pity him," She spoke and her voice was only above a whisper.

"I was dreaming about being back at Phantom. We were out on a job. A real nasty one. I was there watching myself and him work over a merchant. Couldn't stop myself. Can't shake that look out of my head. It fucking kills me that the first time we met the picture in your head looks like that," He looked her dead in the eye then. Sadness and confusion and regret warring with each other. "How could yah even look me in the eye after something like that?" He spat out angrily; deflated.

Levy punched him in the shoulder with her cast arm, wincing slightly though he didn't look like he felt a thing.

"I wasn't born in the guild, you know. I know that sometimes life tries to shape you into something you don't like," She tugged his arm till he got the message and lay down beside her. "I also know that you were given the opportunity to do something different and you took it. You didn't ask anyone to forgive you. You tried to earn that," She kissed each cheek. "Besides, I'm a fairy tail mage. We're tougher than you think, and you've given me some of the best memories I have," She laughed. "Though, ehh, still clumsy as ever."

Gajeel finally let a smile crack his face. "Ain't that a fact."

Levy smiled and wrapped her arms carefully around his neck, drawing him closer. Pressing her lips softly to his. Eyes closed. Gajeel followed her, the tension he didn't know he carried drawn out of him through those lips.


	8. Chapter 8

The sunlight streaming in through the open window felt like it was burning its way through Gajeel's brain through crusty eyelids. He groaned in pain and brought a hand up to wipe the drying drool from the side of his face. Head spinning with the slight movement. His stomach was in the midst of a full on revolt by the time he managed to make it upright in the bed. Propping himself up on his elbows. His eyes open he took in the condition of the apartment through the open bedroom door.

"No deposit back…" He muttered to himself frowning. From his position he could see at least three council mages passed out in various post-party poses in the living room. One was sitting upright against the wall under the window still clutching a beer tankard; vomit staining the entire front of his uniform. Another had fallen asleep on his knees; the man's head touching the floor in front of him in what couldn't possibly have been a comfortable position. There was also one man curled into a foetal ball on the kitchen table amidst the leftover party food and spilled drinks.

Gajeel stretched out his arms and found the bed empty its usual Shrimp. He swung his legs out to the floor, wavering with nausea for a multitude of reasons when he spotted that his fingernails had been painted. The digits alternating in colour between black and almost luminescent pink. "What the _hell?"_ He snarled. Sitting up he noticed that he also was sporting a tutu. On closer inspection it was woven together with hundreds of intricate solid script 'TUTU's. Gajeel's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Yeah, yeah, woman. Don't think I won't find you for this," He ground out. There would be retribution. Later though. Just not right now. His stomach heaved urgently.

After about thirty minutes in front of the toilet vomiting while the still drunken dregs of the Rune Knights brigade literally crawled out of their apartment, Gajeel felt it was time to go looking for Levy. The script mage still missing amid the mounds of rubbish, broken cutlery and ruined furniture.

Gajeel spied a pair of feet sticking out from behind the sofa and feeling particularly smug with his investigative skills pulled the couch out with a loud and resolute "AHHHH HAAAAA!"

A small thin looking elderly woman groaned from her position on the floor. Her dishevelled hair having fallen out of the rollers they seemed perpetually locked into and were presently soaking up a concoction of booze from the floor. She was still wearing pyjamas and a ruined dressing gown. Wrinkled hands clutching an empty bottle of Hargeon brandy as though it was the only lingering semi-attached thread to the living world.

Gajeel left his downstairs neighbour, Mrs Williams, to her own devices and continued his search. In an apartment filled with Levy's things and a few gallons of vomit his usually sharp nose was useless.

It was with a certain sense of disappointment that he started cleaning away the debris from his impromptu birthday bash. At first it was just him haphazardly moving stuff aside to see if Levy or Lily were underneath, then not having anywhere to put the rubbish so he started putting it in rubbish sacks, and then the hairs on his neck prickling in distaste at the suddenly clean, empty space amid the party carnage so of course he'd to continue. After twenty minutes of this he absently realised that his plans for locating his wayward girlfriend and exacting fair revenge would have to be put on hold till the majority of this could be cleared away. It was a wonder how Mira never slaughtered them all in their drunken stupor knowing she'd have to clean up their messes in the morning. Parties in the guild hall were great. They'd all stagger home at dawn and by the time they came back that evening the place would be right back to normal. Spotless clean. Walls and furniture repaired. Stolen tankards replaced.

Gajeel swore he'd never host a party ever again. Because this was just too much work for his unrepentant hangover.

With the entire lower half of his face covered by one of Levy's headbands, Gajeel ran the bleached mop across the floor once more. His aversion to the smell of cleaning products having fallen a notch below his immediate hatred for the smell of stale booze and vomit. One of these smells was indeed making him feel more nauseous than the other. When the fifth and final garbage bag was out of the apartment he collapsed on the couch and surveyed his work. There was some semblance of normality, finally; the smell of the bleach was fading and the stench of regurgitated foulness was completely gone. No rubbish. Broken things disposed of.

When his legs finally stopped feeling like jelly Gajeel put on coffee and went looking for Levy. The apartment wasn't very big but she was in fact pretty small and the current hide-and-go seek Queen of Fiore. Having cleaned the living room, kitchen and bathroom already he was fairly sure if she was still in the apartment at all it would have to be in the bedroom.

After checking under the bed where he found a secret stash of books piled neatly in little columns of three he went to the wardrobe and pulled the doors open. Curled up in the corner half buried under some fallen t-shirts Levy lay clutching a drooling Lily like a teddy bear; an open book resting to her side.

Suddenly thoughts of revenge flittered out of Gajeel's mind as he plucked the Exceed out of her arms, setting him aside and moving the still unconscious Levy to the bed. She didn't stir much although Lily was now wide awake having lost his giant Human heater.

The Exceed stumbled from the wardrobe, bleary eyed and looking as ropey as Gajeel had undoubtedly looked hours before.

"Oh by the gods….." The Exceed took in Gajeel's appearance, black boxers, conjured pink tutu, painted nails and he visibly guffawed. His mouth hanging open before some element of realisation dawned on him. "HAH! I remember now. I still can't believe you haven't changed out of it yet and…" The cat did a double take. "Have you been cleaning, Gajeel?" His shock was evident.

The dragon slayer raised an eyebrow in challenge. "What about it, cat? I clean," Gajeel shot back.

Lily crossed his arms amusedly. "Uh huh, for once I'm not doing it so I'll not argue," The Exceed took a whiff of the air. "Mmmm…. Is that fresh coffee I smell?" He didn't wait for a response, instead floating into the living room with Gajeel following behind after covering Levy with another blanket.

"How's your hangover, Gajeel?" The Exceed asked him cautiously. Trying to gauge just how much of the previous night the man could actually remember. Considering the tutu hadn't been burned Lily wagered there were some gaps in the dragon slayer's memory.

Gajeel narrowed his eyes. It would be a cold day in hell before Lily got one over on him.

"How's _yours_ , cat?" He responded gruffly.

Lily stifled his laughter into the mug of hot coffee and rubbed a paw across his eyes wearily.

"Oh I imagine my head, and _pride_ are doing a little better than yours right now." The cat laughed.

There was a pregnant pause while Gajeel set his cup down with a heavy thud. His normally unreadable expressions were visibly shifting through a wide range of easily recognizable emotions.

"Now what's _that_ supposed to mean?" The dragon slayer barked. The worry on his face brought Lily some comfort despite his pounding headache.

"Oh Gajeel, someone happened to mention jokingly that you were less agile on the battlefield these days, you know, because of your age. And well, you decided to prove them wrong. You weren't just agile, you were _graceful_ in a fight," He recalled.

Gajeel paled. Eyes narrowed.

"I don't believe you," He shook his head. "Quit playin' with me, Lily."

Unfortunately for him, Lily had been recording the entire night's events for posterity. After all, when had Gajeel ever been known to throw a party.

The Exceed led the way to the couch and pulled out a small recording lacrima, smiling menacingly at Gajeel.

The recording started playing and for the most part Gajeel remembered bits and pieces from early in the evening but as the recording sped forward it started getting hazy. Lily stopped the recording on a scene in the bedroom between Levy and himself and he uttered out a small timid "oh no" at the realisation that not only could he not remember this but it was worse that he thought.

 _"Gajeel, I really think this is a bad idea, I mean, you don't even like pink. I could make it black?"_ A somewhat drunk Levy reasoned while trying to adjust the giant conjured tutu across Gajeel's waist, over his pants. The dress not sitting right over the thick, baggy fabric. Gajeel subsequently sensing the difficulty, dropped his pants entirely. Standing there hands on his hips and clad in only his boxers and a tutu.

 _"No, I ain't afraaaaid of colours, Lev! I ain't afraaaaid of anything."_ Drunk Gajeel wavered on his feet a little and staggered. Eyes rolling skyward. _"So you can put me in a pink dress and paint my nails but I ain't backin' out of a bet."_

Back on the couch Gajeel's hand was covering his lower mouth in horror, while Lily's grin was just growing larger. He fast forwarded a little bit.

 _"I'M THE GREAT IRON DRAGON SLAYER BALLERINA, BITCHES!"_ A beyond drunk Gajeel staggered across the living room floor, twirling this way and that while twenty or so Rune Knights and a very drunk old lady cheered him on. Pumping their fists in the air. Levy appeared to be in the background arguing with a Rune Knight; her hand fisted in his shirt and a wavering finger pointed in his face. She was completely oblivious to the scene.

Gajeel's face was going a very unnatural colour watching this. Lily pressed on with the recording.

 _"CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!"_ The bottles fell emptied and the Rune Knight facing Mrs Williams toppled over like a house of cards. A now thoroughly shitfaced Gajeel stumbled up behind her hoisting her up onto his shoulders.

 _"AND WE HAVE A VICTOR!"_ He announced to the room of roaring Knights. Mrs Williams put both her hands in the air shouting something barely intelligible about someone owing her a kiss now and that was enough for Gajeel who plucked the controls from Lily's hands and turned the recording off.

"We are never to speak of this again," He didn't even look at Lily before getting up and going into the bedroom to lay down. The door closing quickly behind him. Still too hungover to worry about possible blackmail material later.

Lily took the small recording lacrima and put it back in his pouch beside the pink and black nail polishes he'd borrowed from Levy's dresser. His smile never faltering. Gajeel hadn't even waited to watch the recording he had of Levy's drunken fist fight.

Well, there'd be time to show him later.


	9. Final Bow

Notes

For starters I'd like to thank my reviewers. I completely, utterly appreciate the fact that you took the time to spur me onward with this. Secondly, the next few chapters are going to be it for Between and will tie it into the Manga. My next Gajeel and Levy piece is going to cut out some of the latest in the manga and will be, I'm hoping anyway, a much longer single story arc.

This piece is going to take some liberties with what we currently know in the official story, so please brave with me.

 **Where'sTheFood** \- I honestly have no words but THANK YOU! Even though this little drabble fest is ending with the next few chapters I've another story in the works. Also GaLe. And will fall in the realms of AU but I was always going to catch up to manga eventually.

 **lilphoenixfeather** \- who's to say that when he's sober he wouldn't make a GREAT ballerina? lol thank you for the continuous support in this little endeavour of mine and much hugs. I'm happy you got a kick out of it.

 **deblovesdragon** \- This is the final few chapters I'm afraid for Between but I'm still going to continue writing. I think it'll take a long time for Gajeel and Levy to finally burn their way out of my blood at this rate.

 **iTanasha91** \- If you liked this hopefully you'll like the next one coming. :)

* * *

Days like this were meant to be miserable. There should have been rain, wind. The sky should have been split in the fucking heavens with lightning; the ground shaken with thunder. The very earth beneath Gajeel's feet should have wept with the grief and the pain and the sheer fucking _disbelief_ they were all feeling. But it didn't. For a late September the weather was unnaturally warm. Especially when the two weeks previous had been so cold. It just didn't feel right for it to be as welcoming as it was outdoors. There was something almost cruel about the beams of warm sunshine bathing the funeral procession. This was nothing to be happy about. This was a fucking tragedy. In more ways than one. Gajeel could feel the rage coiling in his stomach like a snake. He felt utterly _venomous_.

This was the fifth funeral in almost the same number of weeks that the Dragon Slayer had had to attend and in each instance the number of casualties increasing along with the utter gobsmacking level of destruction. Five ceremonies. Five brigades. Five Captains. Five incredible mages. And five jobs without a single survivor to report back. The more Gajeel heard about the circumstances of each disastrous mission the more he started wondering if there wasn't something more to it all. For fuck sake, they pulled Captain Morrow off an assignment to send him after a pirate when everyone and their uncle had heard stories about Giles' fear of the water. It was no secret and a running joke among his men that you could talk him into a pit of monsters with a blunt wooden stick and he'd clamber out victorious but good luck getting him into a bath. And they put him on a _boat_? They pulled him off another job, gave him no information about what he was going to be facing, and sent the guy with night terrors about drowning after _a fucking pirate_ on a _goddamn fucking boat._ Gajeel had no doubt that there was more to it than that. The man wasn't exactly one to let his personal fears hinder him but it was almost like someone had purposefully set him for failure. He knew nothing about fighting at sea. It would be the same logic as sending Gajeel. It read like some sort of prank and it was all becoming more and more difficult to swallow. Someone cracked a joke last week about ranking members of the Rune Knights and Council being assassinated and after today Gajeel couldn't help but consider the farfetched idea that, yeah, maybe they fucking _were_. They were having a laugh with this, surely?

The more he thought about it the more it started making sense. And he couldn't even begin to explain in words how much that very concept worried him, because if it were true, if that was in fact the case it would mean that one or more of Fiore's ten wizard saints, the ten in fact that now comprised the wizarding council and had been assigning these very missions, was systematically killing their most powerful Knights.

That would also mean to include himself, Levy and Lily, sooner or later. He raked his nails over the back of his other hand as the phantom sensation of burning, stung him. _Maybe they'd already tried_. The thought didn't give him any single shred of comfort. They were going to need to tread carefully on this one. Gajeel felt a pang at the thought. Since Fairy Tail disbanded he'd found it hard to fill the hole it left in his life. For all he used to complain about them they eventually became the family he couldn't remember needing but quickly couldn't live without. With Levy and Lily and his current job he was beginning to feel like it might be possible to fill the void it left, someday. But he'd never felt like he had to watch his back from his guildmates. Makarov was a secretive old geezer but he would have literally given his right hand to spare any of them any amount of pain. As foreign a concept as it was to Gajeel, he was a figurative father to them all.

Levy was taking the funeral with more difficulty than most. Captain Giles Morrow had become a close friend to her over the last number of months. Both mages had a fondness for books and the quiet, studious demeanour of an elderly librarian in a monastery while they read. They frequently exchanged reading material and Gajeel had been introduced to the man himself through her; an older greying knight with a ruthless sword hand, a patient ear and thirst for knowledge. Levy had cried herself to sleep the day they broke it to the divisions. A notice coolly pinned on a board in the main hall. No fanfare. No more public displays of solidarity and grief. Twenty men who gave their lives to their jobs and the only record of them would be a closed file and a quiet letter. It wasn't right. Gajeel hadn't known how to comfort her. It had never been his strongest attribute. He did as he'd always done and simply been there. A physical rock for her to cling to. Knowing her strength he knew she would heal eventually, and until then he would do whatever it took to make it easier to bear. He knew her well enough to know that once the grief began to pass she would start coming to the same conclusions as him. That was if she hadn't already and was quietly sitting on her thoughts, carefully masked behind the pain of their friend's passing.

Lily wasn't due back for another week and Gajeel was counting down the days because he knew he needed the Exceed's advice on this.

Levy stood stoically at his side, her shoulders brushing his arms and a cold sliver of dread that he hadn't felt since facing Tartaros crept up his spine, held at bay only by the warmth of her fingers as they entwined in his. He knew this feeling well. He knew that the little world they'd been building was about to crumble down around them and there was nothing they could do about it.


	10. Final Bow Part 2

When the Wizard Council stopped responding to requests for meetings, Levy knew that something big was happening. Even their old friend Warrod had shied from them when they went in search of the reclusive wizard saint and he was never one to turn away anyone who needed to talk. With a feeling of foreboding Levy left her somewhat cushy desk job and the _minions_ that came with it. Within the space of a week she'd officially and permanently transferred to Gajeel and Lily's division. They were short of mages in the field so no one gave it too much thought. But Levy wasn't a fool. How many times had the Council HQ been utterly obliterated in the last ten years? How many times had a new council had to be formed out of the bloody, fiery remnants of the old one? There was nowhere she'd be safer than with Gajeel and if things were going to blow up in their faces she'd be holding his hand at the end of it all. Their little family would stay together, no matter what.

At first there were just rumours. Nothing more than the half-terrified, drunken ramblings of mages who'd maybe had one too many with their game of cards. Then they were the ramblings of sober men, huddled together in worried groups in the corridors. The dark looks passed between higher ranking officials at the back of the meeting rooms whenever it was mentioned. Whenever it was brought up that the strongest of the ten saints, the great God Serena had betrayed them and defected to Alvarez.

Levy knew that he'd left before it could be proven that he'd had a hand in all the deaths. Before they could confront him with the fact that all the signatures on all those disastrous missions, were his. While he was the strongest of all the saints it wasn't certain if he'd have been able to stand against them all, alone. Either way you looked at it, it indicated war. In the wake of his departure the higher ups were working incredibly hard to keep it all under wraps. His betrayal had weakened them significantly. The death toll was over a hundred Rune Knights along with their reputation, and the Council of Wizards was not a body short of enemies that would use that against them.

One in particular that had decided that it was a better idea to continue in the God Serena's footsteps.

In the panic of the evening she couldn't remember if Lily had even come home to them. If he'd been in the apartment, asleep, when someone decided to slip a fuel and potion soaked rag under their apartment door and set it alight. Levy had spent nearly a half hour isolated in the toilet before she'd seen the first billows of smoke waft in through the tiny spaces around the doorway. By the time she'd pulled open the bathroom door half the living room was already an inferno. The sudden blast of heat scorched her face, burning her eyes. She tried to shield herself, covering her head with her arms but it had absolutely no effect. It was a nauseating, suffocating blanket of oppressive, feverish air that she just couldn't escape. She was crushed by it. She shouted for Gajeel but there was no response. Hugging the wall she lowered herself to the ground where the smoke was thinnest and slipped around the corner into the bedroom, coughing and sputtering as her lungs were assaulted with a mixture of smoke and something else that made her tongue numb and her mind foggy. Gajeel was unmoving and unresponsive in their bed, his breath rising in shaky gasps from the toxic air he'd already inhaled while he slept. With strength born only in desperate terror she climbed up onto the bed and rolled him to the floor away from the rising smoke. The dragon slayer hitting the wooden boards with a thud.

Her arms felt like they were going to come away from her shoulders with the force it took to drag a completely limp Gajeel out of the room toward the window but Levy realised with an almost painful jolt of panic that the fire had already reached that point and she was trapped. Cut off from the one avenue of escape that she had out of the apartment. The noise of the fire surrounding her now roaring to such an extent that the only thing louder than it was the sound of her heartbeat in her ears. She tried to breathe but found her lungs straining and her vision getting hazy. Tears came unbidden but evaporated before they could even fall far. The salt drying, leaving itchy, soot filled streaks on her cheeks. She looked around slowly at the life she'd been building with Gajeel as it literally went up in flames. Her _books_ , her hundreds of books. Her walls upon _walls_ of books. Slowly turning to ash. She'd once thought of them as her most prized possessions with Gajeel jovially referring to them as her 'little Dragon hoard'. But it wasn't true. She knew that now. Her 'hoard' were the living breathing faces swirling in her mind. The people and moments that had shaped her life for the better. The little pieces of happiness that reminded her every day of all the things she had to be thankful for. She looked down at Gajeel and realised that the books could _burn_. But Gajeel _wouldn't_. She wouldn't let him. Levy McGarden felt the purest kind of rage burning hotter than even the inferno trying to consume them. She wasn't going to let them die like this.

With fingers shaking she sent water script after water script at the flames trying to dampen them but they'd grown too hot. There was too much fire to quell with her now unfocused and dwindling magic. She grit her teeth and tried to think.

 ** _HOLE_**

The word appeared beneath them and Levy felt herself falling weightlessly for what seemed like an eternity. Cooler, cleaner air greeted her as they fell before the painful landing on the floor of the apartment below. Fire was now starting to consume this empty apartment too but the window was clear and there was less smoke. On shaky legs Levy screamed and roared with frustration and effort and rage, as she dragged Gajeel to the window. She could feel her nails digging into him. Blood welling up under her fingers wherever she broke skin but she ignored it. He'd live. He was going to live. With a final heave Levy made it to the far side of the room where she smashed the window and a segment of wall outward with another script word. She could see people on the street shouting and gathering round as she dragged Gajeel to the edge, facing out into into the breaking hours of the early morning. She hesitated then. His breathing had become almost non-existent and his lips had started turning blue. He wasn't going to survive much longer if she didn't do something now. She took a deep breath of clean air and focused every thought and ounce of magic into her finger tips where she drew 'PURIFY' on his still chest. She punctuated it with a firm and solid thump of her fist. The white glowing word stuck to him and started blackening almost instantly. He gasped for air, taking the first deep breath she'd seen for several nervewrecking minutes but to her disappointment he didn't wake up, although the colour started returning to his lips and skin. Levy smiled regardless and gave him a sloppy kiss on the forehead. She tried to summon a stairs or ramp or slide, anything to get them to the ground safely but despite the relatively, comparatively small magical exertion she was now completely tapped out. It was a different kind of magic. A harder, more taxing kind that could affect living beings. She huffed. Her mind clear enough to realise that pushing an unconscious man out onto the cobbles from a height might in fact finish the job that the fire started if he happened to land on his head or neck. With another deep breath she pulled Gajeel onto her lap, pinning his head and shoulders to her chest and toppled them sideways out of the hole and into the street.

Her smaller body took the brunt of the fall, controlling the landing and cradling him against cobbles. Dimly she realised that Gajeel's weight had shattered a substantial number of bones on one side of her slim frame and she was pinned. Her left shoulder she could be certain had been dislocated. From her position she felt him stir slightly and his groan was worth every ounce of agony.

People crowded round and she felt hands move her and Gajeel further from the building as the city's fire department arrived to help extinguish the blaze. She heard herself scream and cry out with the motion but her eyes were fixed on Gajeel's rising chest. The few scattered, singed pages from her book collection drifting to the stone between them.

The firemen took care of the building with the air of seasoned professionals and for the majority, the building itself was saved. Lily had appeared minutes later to fuss over them. He'd thankfully been out during the whole ordeal and managed to avoid what had clearly been an attempt on their lives. The Exceed was now holding back a fully conscious and utterly flabbergasted Gajeel as he inserted himself in amidst the medical personnel and city officials; causing the bureaucracy grief was a seemingly inherent skill that Gajeel possessed.

When it was clear that there had been no casualties in the blaze Levy let out the breath she had no idea she'd been holding. She could feel the potions and painkillers kicking in but she almost missed the pain. It was keeping her awake. Alive. She absently wondered if this was what Gajeel felt like after a fight. Physical exertion was usually an ingredient missing in her daily life. Mental and magical, yes. But she couldn't ever remember putting quite so much of her body into something. She shook her head of the drugs' effects and clutched Gajeel's hand so tight she saw him wince. He'd been silent for the last number of minutes as the ambulance made its way to the hospital to start the process of putting _her_ back together. From what they could tell her script word had completely removed all traces of the potion and fumes from Gajeel. Aside from a few bumps and scrapes he was in pretty good condition, considering. She recognised the look on his face though. Relief and anger. In this case it was a shared anger that seethed between them; growing exponentially. For once Levy felt like maybe it was time to do something stupid.

The fire in their apartment, put out. The blaze in her eyes however was only just growing.


	11. Final Bow Part 3

Notes

Alright you fine reviewing folks, this is were the canon train ends as far as I'm concerned. I am taking liberties with the remaining chapters on this. Liberties with a very capital 'L'. I thought it was a little weird that in the manga Lily would choose to hold Levy back rather than try and yank Gajeel out of that portal by his pony tail. Of course it started me thinking of a few various situations where protecting Levy might mean just that little bit more than risking a little for Gajeel.

I was so worried about writing this I wrote FOUR different versions. Yes, four. But I figured, hey, this is fanfiction after all. To hell with possible canon for the minute. Let's do this!

So, warning you all now, shit's about to get AU for the remainder of this.

* * *

Being an iron Dragon Slayer generally meant that as a rule of thumb Gajeel had very little experience in hospitals. When your insides can become like iron you find yourself rarely needing anything more than occasional stitches. _His_ bones didn't break. Not like everyone else's anyway. That and his ability to heal made sure that even as a rowdy child picking fights with adults twice his size he generally walked away unscathed.

The thing that he found really, really bugging him wasn't the smell, although the smell was something he couldn't put into words. No, the worst thing about hospitals he found was the overall atmosphere. The feeling of dread and misery that crushed you as you walked through those doors was almost unbearable. The white walls. The stench of sickness that he wasn't entirely sure anyone else would have been able to smell. It didn't feel like a place you came to get better. It felt as though this was where you came to die. The idea that this was where Levy had been taken to get fixed up, rankled him somewhat.

To top everything off, the bright glowing lights seared his eyes and the chairs that he and Lily occupied seemed woefully undersized for them. Lily having been unwilling to reduce his size in the aftermath of the fire. After all, if you go to such lengths to try and kill someone off you'd generally give it another go before quitting, and in a public hospital they were certainly vulnerable. Gajeel squirmed, trying to get comfortable but the cold hard surface under his rear end made it a virtual impossibility.

When the surgery was finished the doctor came out to meet Gajeel and Lily and let them know how everything had fared. Levy was strong, physically and mentally, and despite the panic it had never even crossed their minds that she'd come out of this anything other than right as rain. The doctor's gentle smile still brought them some relief, though.

"She's going to be fine. There was some damage to her rotator cuff…"He spared a quick look back to the chart just to be sure. "So the shoulder is going to need to be kept immobile for a number of days while the potions speed up the repair, but both have come out of this with no long lasting side-effects."

There was a sudden silence in the corridor and the Rune Knights that had been posted to keep guard exchanged a cautious glance at each other before they disappeared out of sight around the nurse's station. Gajeel's brain stuttered. His mouth seemed to move of its own accord but nothing succeeded in coming out. Lily was the only one capable of forming words.

"I'm sorry, I don't think we understand. What do you mean by _both_?" The Exceeds brow had begun creeping up his face in abject disbelief.

The world was warping in slow rhythmic waves for Gajeel. His stomach rolled with the half a sandwich he'd eaten from the hospital cafeteria. It was only Lily's hand on his shoulder that stopped the dark fog creeping in from the sides of his vision.

"I suppose congratulations are in order," The doctor turned red with embarrassment. Clearly unaware that he was also breaking a very different kind of news. "I'm so very sorry, I hadn't realised you didn't know," The doctor apologised, red faced before making a last ditch effort at composing himself; flicking his fingers through her chart again absently trying to avoid eye contact with the suddenly quite terrifying Dragon Slayer. "The medications are going to put her body under a lot of stress over the next few days to mend those bones."

Gajeel could only nod dumbly wavering on his very shaky feet. He still couldn't quite process what was happening. His mind looping on the word 'both'. A single word that he suddenly could no longer fully comprehend. It's meaning now so much vaster than his understanding allowed.

"Nothing she can't handle but for the foetus' security we're going to put it into a little bit of stasis till she's on her feet. The potion wears off in a month and the pregnancy then proceeds as normal during which time she can decide if she'd like to continue,"

Gajeel must have displayed a look of unrestrained panic at those words because the doctor held up his hands in a calming motion. "At this early stage it's just a collection of cells and tissues. It's not really _anything_ just yet. Just a possibility. You'll need to talk it out between you. Having a baby is a big commitment and you're a young couple. It's not right the right choice for everyone…but, you've got time now," Lily guided Gajeel to a chair and gave him a somewhat patronizing pat on the head in some form of comfort. He couldn't tell if the idea of being a father terrified Gajeel or otherwise. His expression had now become impossible to read.

Outside her room they knew the moment the doctor broke the news to Levy as well. Even in her half dazed mind she still managed to yell out "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" Gajeel absently wondered where the doctor got his training from because it was clear when it came to delivering important news he was woefully out of his depth.

When he was finally allowed to see her he found himself crushed in a teary one-armed hug. Her pale, clammy skin already starting the process of sweating out the vast quantities of drugs she'd been fed post-surgery. She smiled at him. The kind of smile that probably got them into this situation to begin with.

"They told you, didn't they?" She grinned at the somewhat spaced look on his face.

"Yeah, they said we had time to talk it out," He scratched his head smiling suddenly. "I ain't got much say in this shit, Shrimp but…I'm not going anywhere."

He scratched his stubbly chin at the thoughtful look on Levy's face. He trust her to factor everything about the situation in. He knew that a war was brewing. Possibly even on two sides, if the intelligence was to be believed that this had been a third party and not directly related to Alvarez. Those were not ideal circumstances to be thinking about bringing children into the world. What place would they be bringing them into when this was all said and done? He trusted Levy. There were no wrong choices in this.

"You know, I was in the bathroom getting sick when I noticed the fire. I guess that was this little thing's fault, now." Her brows furrowed in thought. "If I hadn't of been, we'd both probably be dead," She sighed. "I say we give it a chance," She laughed but it was a little humorless. "We could all be dead tomorrow anyway."

Gajeel scooped the protesting woman into his arms despite her laughter and painful groans.

"We're gonna be parents," The dragon slayer said, utterly mystified by the very concept.

"We're more than likely going to be corpses, Gajeel," Levy smiled at his enthusiasm but they both knew she wasn't joking.

* * *

"Shrimp, when you joked that we might all be corpses, I wasn't actually expecting you to start tryin' to make that a reality," Gajeel growled, eyes fixed at the map between them.

"Hardy har, Gajeel. If we want more information someone is gonna need to go in. Someone that won't be recognised," She huffed. Her cheeks puffed out and red in frustration.

The two had been arguing for close to an hour. The council had ordered they send a spy to the cultists next scheduled meeting. Lily, Gajeel and Levy had all agreed among themselves that as much as they wanted to, they couldn't trust anyone outside their group. Clearly there were already some loose tongues on their end feeding information out of Council hands. Now, it had come down to which one would be taking the assignment, Levy or Gajeel since Lily would have stood out like a sore thumb. A seven and a half foot sore thumb made of fangs and rippling muscle. No, it had to be one of them. The problem was coming to an agreement. The iron dragon slayer would be more suited to staying alive if it all went wrong, but Lily had to agree with Levy that their best shot of not being detected was her. Her magic could also help conceal her if things did go bad and they'd prefer that the cultist group not be aware of just how much information they'd already gathered on them over the last week. The Council's word of the day had been 'discreet'.

With a look that promised murder, Gajeel got outvoted. Feeling the heat of the Dragon Slayer's glare, the Exceed left the pair to themselves. If anyone could talk some sense into Gajeel it was Levy.

"I can't believe that bastard cat voted against me. I thought he'd understand. How am I expected to let the mother of my child go on what's pretty much a suicide mission?" He flailed his arms in frustration, not noticing the dark look that twisted Levy's face at his outburst.

She kicked him in the shins, hard, and glared at him. The use of her actual name striking fire in her words.

"Is that all I become now? Is it? The mother of _your_ child?" She snarled at him, slamming her hands, palm down on the map table. "How _dare_ you! How dare you reduce me down to a walking incubator for your offspring, Gajeel," She leveled a finger at his face. "I am a mage just like you. You don't get to decide these things for me," She practically snarled at him.

"I should get a say. You won't be the one left behind if anything happens," Gajeel fired back, not thinking clearly after being put on the back foot by the venom in her words. The silent 'but your pregnant?' evident in his meaning.

"And you think it doesn't work the other way around, Gajeel?" She poked him in the chest sharply. "You think because I'm pregnant that that means I get a pass on this? You're so _selfish_ sometimes," She ground out. "This is the job and _I'm_ the best one for it. Being pregnant doesn't change that. People are counting on us." She forced herself to calm down. " _Lives_ are counting on this, Gajeel. So you better get used to it. Maybe when I can't run up a flight of stairs or see my toes you can start parading the 'unfit for duty' card in front of me. But not now. And _not_ today," She squared her shoulders. "We're Fairy Tail wizards and we deliver on contracts," She spoke meeting his eyes with all the authority she possessed.

As much as it hurt him, in every way hurt him, to entrust this to her, he knew she was right.

"Fine then," He growled before stalking out of the tent. The words of silence that Levy had lined the inside of the room with to prevent eavesdropping, falling away with her mood.

"Big giant jerk…" She whispered before placing her hands over her not yet showing stomach, a smile suddenly splitting her face. "What are my bets that you're gonna be siding with him in the arguments, huh?"

She looked at the opening of the tent frustrated.

"I'm surrounded by jerks."

She looked back down at the map on the table. Sneak in. Watch. Listen. Sneak out after. Piece of cake. She laughed nervously, she was a fairy Tail mage. She knew that nothing was ever going to be that easy.


	12. Final Bow Part 4

Notes

It makes me incredibly happy that folks like my Levy. Her and Gajeel always feel like uncut diamonds to me. All the potential in the world is there for them to be amazing and they help bring that out in each other.

Not long to go on this one, now. :) Hope you enjoy!

* * *

While outright physical intimidation certainly had its place in the line of work that they seemed to find themselves frequently involved, it rarely felt like best option for Levy. She didn't necessarily mind that she gave a certain impression, either. She knew she was a small woman, and she found that being quick, intelligent and unassuming could open just as many doors as her larger counterparts banging heads together, and with far less mess. She was easy to talk to and easy on the eyes, and generally carried with her the air of someone unaccustomed to violence, or at least unused to getting their hands dirty. People underestimated her _all_ the time and gave her opportunities they might not present for someone they deemed an outright threat. Levy never really dirtied her hands simply because her way was generally easier. There might have been a time in the past when she believed that she _couldn't_ go the Gajeel route, but she knew better now. Even though back at the guild the general consensus would have been that she solved issues quietly and painlessly because she just didn't have it in her to do otherwise.

The great thing about all of that, Levy felt, was in how absolutely untrue it was. If anything, being with Gajeel had shown her just how alike they really were. They used their best for the job at hand. Sometimes that meant a sweet smile and puppy dog eyes, easier for her than Gajeel, of course … and sometimes it meant getting physical. While the idea of Gajeel giving anyone puppy dog eyes was laughable at best, the iron bastard could be charming when he had to be. And Levy?

The man's swing went wide with only the barest twisting movement of her shoulders. The power he'd poured into his fist was instantly lost to empty space and only served to throw him so far off-balance that he had to step forward to catch himself. He wasn't anywhere even close to Gajeel or Lily in terms of speed or ability, and Levy had learned to hold her own against them; they were too experienced to make that kind of mistake, she realised. When punching down with that kind of power you had better make sure you hit your target. The script mage caught the man in the windpipe with a straight hand and he fell heavily like a sack of flour at her feet, gasping for air, both hands clutching his throat trying to take in the breath she'd jabbed out of him. She calmly and quietly chained him up and slapped a word of silence over his mouth before attempting to drag him off the road. Her cheeks red with the effort of pulling the squirming man out of sight. She held up his cloak and let out a breath wishing she'd chosen her targets a little more carefully because the thing was far too big. She hesitated, worried that this wasn't going to work before she saw the words on the inside of the hem. 'One Size Fits All'. It was script magic. Advanced script magic at that. She threw the material across her shoulders and garment trailed at her feet for a moment before adjusting its length to match her height.

"And I still can't find stuff to fit me in stores? Ughhhh…whoever makes these things is in the wrong business. They should open a shop," Levy absently spoke to the man despite his inability to respond. He glared at her hatefully but the anti-magic cuffs and chains weren't going anywhere, anytime soon. "Maybe I should look into that in the future. Can't be in this type of business forever," She muttered to herself, thoughtfully optimistic. She'd always wanted to open a bookstore. The idea of spending her days surrounded by texts was a certain kind of pleasure, in and of itself. Truthfully, it was a dangerous business they were currently in at the best of times, and there were going to be points in the near future when she would need to look into less dangerous ways to utilize her skills for money. Gajeel, too. Her hands found her necklace and she pondered a Gajeel that used his iron fists for something other than cracking skulls. It was a bizarre thought and it made her laugh to herself to even think of it. But she knew old age happened to everyone, unfortunately. To top it off, children were expensive. They'd need to buy a house. A business or two on the side would help that.

It wasn't actually hard to get into the supposed secret meeting. Wasn't that always the easy part anyway? Levy mused. Carefully and quietly, she slipped into a large group of followers as they approached the gathering point and when they formed lines, so did she. Everyone kept their heads down and hoods up. She could only believe it was for some sort of dramatic effect because with a gathering of this size it served virtually no other purpose. The area was a sea of faces. She had been worried about her short height making her more noticeable but the group was an even mix of men and women of varying ages. Like most cults, it seemed Avatar weren't shy of sinking their claws into the young, either. Gratefully, Levy was pretty much invisible among the crowd.

The area had become densely packed in a short amount of time. From a quick cursory glance there looked to have been about two hundred people or so all talking among themselves in excited whispers; a makeshift podium had been erected atop what looked to have been the remains of a ruined stone building.

To the right of the podium a small girl beamed eagerly out at the crowd. Her eyes were too wide and her expression too unhinged to look in any way as innocent as her overall appearance would want onlookers to believe. Hands clasped behind her back she rocked impatiently on the balls of her feet, eyeing the crowd carefully. Her short chin length hair making her look even younger than Levy wagered she was. The higher ranking members of Avatar were all black magic wielders intent on the Council's eradication. She wasn't going to buy the act for a moment.

The girl was joined soon by a woman that Levy was all too familiar with, her name having been on more arrest requests than the script mage could immediately number. Briar's warrants used to be peppered with phrases like 'apprehend the suspect' and 'take in for questioning', one of her latest had consisted of a simple 'capture or execute'. The woman had been responsible for more deaths than anyone else still currently at large and was probably the most noticeable of the cult members to have made an appearance.

That was until Gray Fullbuster appeared from behind to take the left side of the podium with an air of disinterest. Levy felt her chest tighten, her mouth falling open. She'd changed a lot in a year. She'd grown stronger, more sure of herself, but looking at her friend now, a warped version of the man she'd grown up with, she suddenly felt childlike. So very far out of her depth. Black, charred looking tendrils marring his face and neck, a symptom of the devil slayer magic that she'd only been vaguely aware of him possessing after the fight with Tartaros. It was the first she'd heard of him in the year since Fairy Tail disbanded. She was having a hard time believing that this was real. That this was really him.

So stunned by his presence there, Levy didn't fully comprehend the danger she was in until his eyes met hers with an intensity that made her stomach heave violently, and she realised with a peculiar feeling of horror, that out of all the people here, he was the only one that would be able to recognize her.


	13. Finale Bow Part 5

Her breath hitched again painfully when his eyes narrowed on her face and he didn't move to look away. If there was even a shadow of a doubt that he might not recognize her, it was long gone now. His stare was measured. Eyes narrowing slightly. His expression was unreadable. A wild voice in her mind thought 'typical Gray' before her panic silenced it. If he pointed her out in a crowd like this she was going to die. There wasn't a single thing she could do about it. She must have moved without realizing because someone told her to "watch it!" and she vaguely became aware of colliding with someone. Levy felt her vision start swimming. The mildly unpleasant summer heat somehow had gone from tolerable to unbearable in moments. She felt a sudden jolt in her lower abdomen and the panic surged tenfold. _Not now. Please not fucking now._ she could feel it then. The wave of warmth as blood flow increased in the area left her with no illusions as to what had just taken place in the middle of her undercover mission into the ranks of the secret death cult. She had to tell Gajeel it would be fine, didn't she. Levy staggered into the man at her right before there was blackness and she collapsed.

She woke up to a cold, icy cloth over her head. Without even thinking her hands found their way to her abdomen and she winced. Of all the days, of all the hours for the potion suspending her pregnancy to end, this happened to have been the worst possible time. She found herself in the shade, propped up against the wall. Gray sat back on his haunches, the cloth in his hands steaming with the ice he was gradually applying to bring her body temperature down.

She remained silent, instead choosing to glare at him. Her shoulder hurt. No doubt after she fainted she'd been dragged from the clearing, out of sight. That she wasn't dead told her a number of things. One, Gray hadn't told anyone who she was, two, they didn't know she was there on behalf of the council, and three, she was going to have to put up with Gajeel's smug and overbearing behaviour for the remainder of the pregnancy. Possibly beyond.

Gray cast a quick glance around, scanning the area it would seem before looking back to her. Under the edges of his shirt she could see that the black markings from his face had already covered his guild mark. A new mark in its place. It was a sinister looking stain that seemed to writhe and move the more she stared at it.

"Coming here was a pretty stupid thing to do," He rasped. His voice hard.

Levy sat herself up straighter and crossed her arms over her chest. Avatar had almost succeeded in burning her and Gajeel alive while they slept. The anger she now felt to know that Gray had been involved in that; that even _indirectly_ he'd had a part in that, made her blood boil like molten led in her veins.

"Stupid? You want to talk about stupid?" She snarled at him and there was a satisfied look in her eyes to see him recoil from that. "Stupid, was not finishing me and Gajeel off when you tried to burn us alive, Gray," Her voice broke with the magnitude of the emotion she was feeling. The surprise on his face sapped some, though not all, of her righteous anger. Her abdomen ached a little and she found herself suddenly nauseous.

"You're Rune Knight Captains?" He asked. Slow to realize the reality of what that meant. His face a mixture of shock and shame. "The attacks on you weren't officially sanctioned. I didn't hear about it until afterward," He took in a breath. "I'm sorry," He whispered. "So...you and Gajeel?" He asked her cautiously.

Levy started at him, frowning.

"We've been dating for about six months… _not_ that it's any of your business," She grumbled. Her anger subsiding with the relief that she more than likely wasn't going to die. It was clear that whatever was going on, she didn't have the full picture. If Gray were really on Avatar's side she'd be dead. If he was on the Council's, she'd know about it. Hopefully, anyway. That could only leave third party involvent.

"I was just going to ask if you guys were _alright,_ but I suppose, congratulations?" He offered a half smile. Levy let her right hand trail to her abdomen again. Gray's eyes followed, widening somewhat though he said nothing about it. Bastard was just too observant for his own good. "I'm not your enemy," He spoke softly. Levy didn't look him in the eye. Instead looking passed him into the treeline. A part of her afraid that this conversation had been overheard.

"I'm still alive, so figured as much," She thought for a moment, now that her head was clear. "You sent the information about the meetup to the Council," He didn't look surprised that she'd work it out. It wasn't even a question. As soon as the words left her mouth she knew it was the truth.

"It was Erza's idea," He offered and Levy felt herself smile a little despite herself. Dangerous mission into a den of evil, Zeref worshipping cultists? _Of course_ Erza was involved. Levy laughed.

"Almost feels like we're getting the family back together," She smiled sadly. Memories of her last day in Fairy Tail cut pretty deep. The one thing that she'd never worked out had been why Makarov had disbanded them but it had given her the push to grow stronger. Maybe it had been for the best. It was a comforting thought, despite the empty, hollow feeling the memories left in their wake.

Gray stood and offered her a hand but Levy was already standing before he could say anything. She brushed herself off. Her pout at the grass stains on her tan skirt made Gray smile again. The year had changed him just as much as it had changed her, but some things seemed a constant. Examining him closely, Levy noted the dark circles that seemed etched into his face beneath his eyes; her gaze lingering worriedly on the black, jagged mark across his face. He looked tired. As she watched, the mark receded and grew back again. Gray's smile turned a little smug as her eyes widened to watch the darkness move.

"I've got it under control...though, it's about the only thing," He admitted; glancing around him again. "Listen, I left Gajeel an update before I knew you were going to show up here. He knows there's going to be an attack soon, but he doesn't know everything. For starters, Erza's been itching for a good fight for months. Not to mention Avatar have a certifiable _army_ of followers at their disposal," He set his hand on her shoulder. "This is going to get _very_ messy, very quick," He grinned like a fool and it made Levy want to kick him. "You know, just in case you want to duck out of it."

Levy looked at the hand on her shoulder and placed one of her own over it and twisted, pulling Gray off balance and making him stumble. "If you really expect me to sit on the side-line while Gajeel goes into this then you're crazy," Gray easily broke her grip and righted himself, but the message was clear. "Besides, if I'm not there, who's going to stop Gajeel from kicking your ass all the way from into a Council cell?" Levy countered.

The two shared a moment of amiable silence before Levy made to leave; a thought striking her as she went.

"Hey, Gray, ehh, this never happened, right?" She asked almost pleadingly.

Gray caught on quickly.

"Sure. You don't tell on me and I won't tell on you. Besides, Avatar has its share of eyes and ears in the Council."


End file.
